Bisclavert
by Missing Triforce
Summary: John and the wolf settle in the darkness of the moor, thinking of his revenge, secretly longing for peace. But he never seems to get that. And then there's Sherlock. AU dark!werewolf!John. Sequel to 'Howl.' Warnings for slash, dubcon, & technical character death. H/C in later chapters. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello all! The following is a sequel to my story "Howl." This will be a bit confusing if you haven't read it, but maybe manageable? ALSO, this entire story is dedicated to WaffleNinja, who is AMAZING and gives me all the plot bunnies. So you can send your love that-away. Thank you to the others who reviewed "Howl," though. The love is appreciated. **

**PLEASE NOTE, that this is my first official M-RATED story. It is very dark and there will be (semi-explicit) SLASH and lots of DUBCON and TECHNICAL CHARACTER DEATH (you'll see what I mean). Do what you will with that.**

**And finally: Disclaimer: I own almost nothing.** **Sherlock, John, other characters & places & plots belong to BBC and technically Sir Conan Doyle. I do, however, own all original characters.**

**Enjoy!**

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The wolf was running.

The drivel, meaningless, ignorant, betraying people had stopped running.

He was glad for that, actually. It meant he was able to lick his wounds and eat his revenge in peace (...). The wolf didn't remember not being hungry and hurt, hurt and hungry, of knowing something, some_one_ had done this to him, some indespicably vile being had started the curse, had _bitten_ it into him, into his DNA (unknown word) and genes (unknown) until it raced like his heart. It tore through his flesh and bone and beat in his organs, breathed through his lungs, vibrated in his ears, pounded with his feet. Someone had done this and someone was going to _pay_.

The wolf didn't know how though. Or who. Or what. He remembered a deal struck, a promise written, and good intentions dashed. Someone was to be protected, but had been cursed instead. The wolf decided it didn't matter. He would destroy them anyway. Any useless two-legger who came close would feel his pain. But, in the meantime, rabbits were good. Hedgehogs. Lizards. The stray housecat. The unleashed dog. Foxes tried to befriend him, but he chased them off. The wily beasts were not good company to keep. There was his other form too, that could sometimes get food, though getting proper clothing for it was always a bother, the hairless cretin.

The wolf continued running.

He kept running until he came to forests. The air smelled different here, outside of the place called London (his birthplace, his beginning). The city was crowded with too many noises and smells and lights (unfortunate). Here the forest was murky, dark, strange. Nature called instead of the small metal dwellings on wheels. Fog rolled in to cool his fur, leaving droplets for him to shake out when he woke. The grass had an almost salty tang (he had been looking for worms), the mud was soft and left impressions (that rabbit was much easier to find). The rocks baked in the sun, retaining warmth, letting him curl up in them after the sun went down. The wind yawned through the slopes, the verdant moor twisted and confused, the moon glistened bright in the sky. He sang to it and the dark sang back.

And no one dared bother him. For a while at least. The people must have figured out a wolf was roaming the woods for how much they stayed away. He hated and delighted in it. If they were far, he couldn't avenge himself on them. If they were far, he could live in peace.

He had made a den in a hollowed out tree, one that had been split and burned down the middle, the fire eating away the soft center to now make a nice, hidden overhang. He lined it with smooth leaves and grasses, a proper nest and he buried previous kills nearby. It was close to another hollow, a place where the earth smelled metallic, where the fog came at a push of indented earth and gave him dreams of himself fulfilling his revenge, biting and tearing and _destroying_, silencing the weakening cries of his prey ("I opened my eyes and the nightmare was me"). He liked it. It gave him aura, power. Even the other animals left him alone.

One night he woke up and someone was in the other hollow. He could smell a human on the wind, their disgusting scent twisting with the fog's. They were going to die. He would see his dreams fulfilled.

It was indeed a two-legger, a human. He silently leapt down into the hollow, taking the two-legger by surprise when he jumped up in attack (male, older, smelled like chemicals and plastic gloves and cold). The two-legger fell and the wolf fell with him, slashing at the human's face and trying to bite, trying to give pain as he had received it. The human was wearing a mask though, a something blocking him from tasting its blood, from stopping the rapid beating of its heart. Even its flailing arms were protected. The wolf growled in frustration.

He felt something pressed into his shoulder and suddenly his muscles were weakening, his legs growing soft. No! The wolf roared and bit down as hard as he could on the nearest bit of flesh (I am supposed to destroy you. It is written). All he encountered was soft gunk. His limited vision was going, the smells of the world were dimming. Damn, damn, damn, _damn it all the hell _(what is hell?)_._

The darkness was all encompassing.

IiIiIiIiIiI

The wolf decidedly did not like the new situation.

The wolf had woken someplace new. It was almost entirely white except for the silver bars of his rather spacious cage (it _burned, _it _hurt)_. It smelled like human and antiseptic (new word, recently surfaced). Humans would speak and their breath would smell like lunch. They all wore white coats and peering expressions. The first week he growled and howled and banged and threw himself against the bars in frustration. He refused to eat the red steak they provided or drink their sanitized, empty water that did not taste-tell where it had been like the river did. Sterilized.

The second week they shot him with things that make him sleep (and dream empty dreams of blackness and the moor) and he would wake up groggy and feeling like he had been moved. His belly would be mysteriously full. He hated it even more.

The third week he tried a different tactic. He changed to his other form and ate and drank like a human. He thought maybe if he kept it up long enough they would forget he was really a wolf and let him go. He didn't speak. He just glared, hoping to make them feel like they had done something wrong and made a mistake and to _let him out so he could rip them to pieces for their impudence _(that's not very polite, but what even is politeness. Wolves do not carry nationality like the British).

He was a little bit wrong with this thinking.

Instead of being confused, the humans all became delighted. Happy pheromones littered the air, smiles and cooing and more writing and tabulating and knocking him out and probably poking him with things. They set out clothes, which he blatantly ignored. They stole some of his steak and didn't give it back. He turned back into a wolf while they weren't looking and when they turned back around they were _even more_ delighted. He turned back into a human, not caring anymore if they watched and they ran around the laboratory with clipboards and graphs and chatter and _God, would they just shut up, even Sh-who? Nevermind._

He stubbornly refused to transform back into himself after that. He didn't speak, because this form's voice was bloody embarrassing compared to his normal one.

At the end of the fourth week, the scientists were looking less excited. The wolf was hopeful. But then he had a visitor that ruined it.

The man walked through the elevator door to the wolf's floor. The entire floor was dedicated to the wolf, his cage and computers and a coffee station and whirring machines all trying to figure him out. This man was not wearing a white coat, though, but a tailored suit. He carried an umbrella. Ever since being captured, the wolf had kept remembering words, stories, concepts, meaningless human _things _that were decidedly less important than how to catch a rabbit or kill all the humans in the vicinity. But this was how the wolf knew what a dull brolly was.

The scientists crowded around the man, showing him their clipboards and notes and a bloody prezzie that contained lots of pictures of the unconscious wolf and nucleotide sequences. The wolf huffed. He was not impressed.

Finally, as if it was the pièce de résistance of this tour, the man was allowed to approach the wolf himself (like he hadn't been able to see him the whole time: stupid two-leggers). This slightly pleased the wolf though because it meant he was important. The courtiers tittering advice to the foreigner before visiting the king (fairy tales had started telling themselves in his head a few days ago, or at least he thought it was few days. It was always difficult to tell time down here, without the sun and moon to guide). The wolf sat at the back of his cage, legs crossed and hands on his knees, calm. As the man stepped closer, so did his scent. The wolf took a breath so to mock what little smell this form's nose was able to pick up.

The first thing he noticed was that the man hadn't eaten, his being didn't smell like greasy cafeteria food. The second thing was that this man smelled like something very familiar, someone the wolf had smelled at the very beginning of his existence, the screaming, hysterical, lost man.

"John," the man said.

It was like a switch had been flipped.

The wolf threw himself against the bars of his prison, snarling, spitting, gripping the bars like death and ignoring the silver burn. He tried to fit his fingers through, grasp, throttle, choke the man, the man he suddenly hated even more than everyone. Maybe it was him who had cursed him because he was going to suffer just as much as the one who had. He was going to be torn, broken, devoured, crunched, ripped, suffocated for saying that. For saying that name. For bringing _that_ here. For letting these prodding imbecile scientists _know_ that, of all things, about him. The wolf drew back and threw himself against the cage again. Against where the door would be, must be, the door he most certainly would be getting the fuck out of so he could delete this visiting man from existence.

"What's happening?"

"His adreneline levels are rising, and heartbeat going haywire."

"We've got to put him under. He might hurt himself."

"No, no, let's see how this plays out."

The wolf roared to drown out their miserable noise and threw himself against the door again and again, the memory, _his only human memory left_, was playing itself over and over in his brain. And it hurt, hurt so much. It held so much pain. Because he was John and he had lost his Sher-

No! No. Don't think, don't speak, don't let it out, don't let it take control away from you. But he could feel it, the creeping consciousness, little shy fingers taking over his head, little tendrils smoothing down his eyes and nose and hair. Trying to be insistent and soothing and crying all at once.

The wolf threw itself against the door one last time, some part of him finally bleeding and John sobbed. The wolf curled up in a ball, refusing to look at Mycroft.

"Go away," he croaked. "I don't need any reminders."

"What do you want me to tell him?" Mycroft's voice was silky, covering him like a soothing blanket, like the warmth of his and Sherlock's bodies together on the sofa in the memory.

John sobbed again, clutching at his chest. It felt like his heart was breaking.

"Tell him nothing. I don't want him to know. Tell him I'm dead."

"He misses you deeply, you know. He'll never stop searching."

"He hasn't found me yet. Let me out and he never will." John turned to face Mycroft, giving him his best glare, trying to show him the monster with his eyes, trying to lay down a pronouncement. "He will never forgive you if he finds me here. He will never speak to or acknowledge you. He will make himself disappear with me, go someplace you will never find us, make it so he is dead for you, that all your memories together are dust and buried." John let the wolf through, lifting his lips to show overlong canines. "He will be erased."

Mycroft lifted one posh eyebrow. "I did not know werewolves had the gift of prophecy."

The wolf had had enough. With a scream, John was gone and he was transforming back to his true self, the scream morphing into a howl, a demonic call, a song for the bestial soul. The wolf let the red take over, let all his supernatural strength push forth as he broke out of his cage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Right-o, it's chapter 2! For returning readers, please note that I cut Chapter 1 off at John and the wolf breaking out of Baskerville and the rest of that chapter (and more) is below. Other than that, please read and review! Lemme know what you like, don't like, if you have any queries, rants, meal plans etc. Chapter 3 will be up next Friday!**

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Apparently, calling on all of your being and supernatural essence took a lot out of you.

The wolf was laid up for nearly two months. He didn't dare transform into his other self again, scared of the CCTV of the civilized. That night, he had returned to his (molding; need to clean) den and mostly slept, only hobbling out to make sure to press his paw on the switch that set off the mysterious fear-fog if anyone got close. Groups of humans were there regularly now, marveling at the hollow. One of them made a cast of his footprint. He didn't especially care.

While he was in his fug, two male humans found him, but they were harmless enough. He had barely been able to keep his eyes open beyond munching rabbit foot at that point anyway. They moved him to a nice cave, which they filled with pillows and blankets and Godforsaken chew toys (I'm not a bloody _dog_). They fed him peanut butter and cheese and steaks and cautiously tried patting him on head (they stopped doing that after he snapped at them twice). They let him out at night and once he was able he went out to sullenly run and howl and generally make a mess of things. He heard them chatting about a tv programme that featured Devon and how he should be "a good dog" and not eat the tourists (always said nervously, with a high-pitched giggle).

After three months, they mentioned a "Baskerville research facility" and the wolf had had enough. He obliterated his pen, ransacking the entire contents before running into the night, determined not to be kept. He was a wolf, damn it. Best act like one.

He returned to his den, snuffling around, clearing out the dirty old bedding, laying out new leaves and grass. He made the metallic fear-fog come up more often, giving him dreams of power. Some skinny little twerp saw him one night, ogling at his footprint and shadow, screaming of hounds and devils and glowing red eyes. The wolf was pleased with this description. He decided he was fine here. He didn't need to run or move. Amongst the wind and the rain and moorish desolation, away from thoughtless humans and labs and needles, it was easy to forget the memory and pain and revenge. He could just be free.

IiIiIiIiIiI

But, as usual it seemed, something came along to disturb his peace. On a full-moon, a night where it was nigh impossible for him to transform to his other self anyway, the wolf woke from his den, yawned, crawled out, stood, shook his fur, and scented the air to only have the wind bring him the smell of Sherlock Holmes (the wolf had allowed himself the name now, keeping all the human words he'd remembered, keeping all the fairy tales that had come back).

God. Fucking. Damn it.

John and the wolf raced down to the fear-fog hollow, hoping to set it off so that Sherlock would be deterred and keep away. When he arrives, the twerp human was there too, Sherlock calling him "Henry." The wolf and John watched the pair as they milled about with their torches, sucking in the fear-fog, their breathing and heart rate increasing as it incrementally infected them more and more. Sherlock was really there, he marveled, curls and coat and all. He seems very thin, hardly any muscle on him. His movements are twitchy, erratic, though that might just be the fog at work. They weren't moving out of it. Why weren't they moving? The fog made them fearful so why stand there and get more panicked?

Oh, John supplied. They need something to get fearful at. The half-consciousness was useful now, so the wolf allowed it.

That's easy, the wolf replied. Thank you, John, for the suggestion. The wolf and John jumped down into the hollow, right in front of the two men. He raised his hackles and growled.

Henry screamed. Sherlock shook like a leaf.

The poor wee babes.

He hopped a bit towards them and did it again, feigning at attacking, barking and snarling. Henry screamed again and John giggled at his fright. The wolf wouldn't eat them. Revenged seemed less sweet now, attacking the human race indiscriminately an awful, unproductive bore. When the wolf had first realized itself, John had made a deal to not attack Sherlock. Henry was under Sherlock's protection (client). Right now the only person John really wanted to bite was Mycroft, if the fat walrus was ever stupid enough to enter his territory. Or maybe that particularly annoying tour guide who kept bringing those mindless sheep-people here. So basically anyone how invaded his home except Sherlock (& co). Yes. That sounded good.

Sherlock giving out a small yelp brought John and the wolf's attention back to the present. Henry had fled, running back to his home no doubt. Sherlock was staring at him like he was a vision, his carried torch trembling, his face white with fear. Finally showing some emotion Sherlock Holmes? When it's just the two of us, in a hollow patch of ground, alone except for the poisoned fog and dead leaves and stones?

For a moment, they were like that. Still as the air. But then a late night breeze picked up, swirling some of the leaves.

Sherlock's lips mouthed the word "John?"

The wolf and John just stepped back into the fog, letting the chemical whiteness obscure him.

IiIiIiIiIiI

It's not exactly that he doesn't remember Sherlock Holmes. It's just that, beyond the single memory, everything is like a fairy tale to him, more so than what John says are actual fairy tales about vampires and witches and magical sticks that beat people to death. Those seem real. From the memory, the wolf knows he was once called John, that he was once part of the Sherlock Holmes fairy tale and the memory is the culmination of it, or at least a poignant part. But the story itself-the 221b flat, the cases, the body parts in the fridge-are little more than words on paper to the wolf. His is the world that begins the night he first transformed and John forced him from biting Sherlock. Now, everything that is John is the wolf and everything that is the wolf is John. Two forms with near indistinguishable minds. He doesn't particularly _like_ the human name John (not threatening enough), but nothing else is better (at least of the names John remembers).

But Sherlock is still special to him, the deal of non-destruction a twist in his existence. After seeing him, the wolf and John retreat to his den, going back to sleep until the next night. The wolf dreams of the memory over and over and over and his heart breaks a little.

The next moon rises, already not full. The wolf and John go out to hunt, having missed out last night, and catch a squirrel. Its soft, hot flesh was delicious once he noses past all the fur. He finished it, greedily lapping up all the fluid before leaving it there to rot. He barked out a happy, contented sound before running off, enjoying the powerful pump of his legs, the notches of speed he achieved. He howled at the moon, singing it his joy. He found a river and began to drink.

The wind changed and the wolf and John smelled a trace of the metallic fog, cueing that some idiotic human has set it off, despite the late hour. He was running towards it before he could even think. Sherlock's smell joined the wind, along with Henry's. Two unidentified humans, both carrying masculine musk, were there as well. What was Sherlock doing?

John and the wolf slow as he closed in, moving softly among the leaves, not wanting to alert the dull human ears. He flicks his ears back and forth, trying to catch the talking noises. The two unidentified men were approaching the hollow, Sherlock and Henry already there. Henry was giving off waves of fear and panic, so sensitive to the encroaching fog. Sherlock was trying to calm him, make him remember something (you and me both, Henry). As the wolf and John inched closer, Henry seemed to calm and one of the other men called a greeting to Sherlock, meaning he must be a friend (though all the hearts were beating faster, quickening. No, one wasn't, the one yet to be revealed). That one was not calling a greeting though his footsteps were close to Sherlock, that one had slowed to observe the others, to spy.

That meant Sherlock was not protecting the unknown one. That meant the unknown one was trespassing, intending to harm. That meant the unknown one was _his_.

John and the wolf jumped from the shadows. Sherlock yelled that it was an ordinary dog between Henry's screams of "Oh God!" The third just stared, flashing about his torch. John and the wolf growled, snarled, barked at Sherlock to notice the unknown one (turn around, you insufferable idiot!). John and the wolf could barely make out the one behind, the murky gas mask. Sherlock finally turned and caught the man, yanking him around, shaking him, Sherlock's face twisted in fright.

"For God's sake, kill it!" said the unknown.

John and the wolf saw the third lift his gun.

John and the wolf growled and darted forward, his hackles raised. Sherlock let go of the unknown, taking off the gas mask, and the wolf jumped up, biting into the unknown's exposed shoulder, tasting the spurt of blood, clawing at the body. He tore off the chunk of flesh, spitting it out, and the worthless, stinking human writhed as John and the wolf bit into his neck, deep until the was under the spine and lifted so to snap it with a crunch of canine teeth. Rip. Tear. Devour. This was his curse and this human was feeling it. The wolf's teeth glistened with blood, grinning.

The wolf gave a yelp as someone shot him in the back.

The wolf and John spun around with a roar, ready to attack again. To feel this rush of strength and instinct and he faced the third man with a gun. Greg Lestrade, John supplied. Blood was oozing out of his back and it _hurt_ like when John has been shot and the wolf had hopped forward, roaring again, about to pounce again.

But then Sherlock was in front of him, blocking Lestrade and him from attacking, saying he is under my protection, you are not allowed to destroy. The wolf's muscles tingled, wanting to avenge and kill again because it felt so _good_, but it was John's promise. John and the wolf licked his lips.

Sherlock kneeled in front of the wolf and John, a position of weakness, appeal. He reached a hand out. The wolf and John growled.

"John?" he asked.

Ah, bloody hell.

He could run, he knew. He could run now and not be found, leave the moor and the forests and not return and Sherlock would lose him like last time. Or he could transform, talk, and make Sherlock realize that his John was gone, the story's John was not coming back. It was John and the wolf now. This seemed more effective. And the transformation would heal the bullet in his back.

Not to mention the slight trauma of having to watch a werewolf transform.

John and the wolf remembered what it was like in the other body, the tenderness of the skin, the delicate twist of the ear, the sharpness of the eyes. He felt his hair recede, his nose cartilage break and crunch to be shorter. His bones fused and broke together, his tail was sucked up into his spine. The bullet popped out of his back, harmless on the ground. His hair as a wolf was shaggy and his human hair matched, though the fibers dyed themselves blonde. His ears muted and migrated to the sides of his head. His eyesight morphed, colors and dark coming into focus as his nails replaced claws. Thumbs re-arranged to a more useful position, the tongue designed for talking instead of lapping up creek water.

Once he was done, he was healed and stark bollock naked (not that he cared). It took him a minute to figure out his vocal chords and shaping sounds, but he eventually softly caressed the word, "Sherlock."

Lestrade dropped his torch. Henry looked like his eyes were about to pop. Sherlock looked like he was about to cry (John's heart was breaking and mending at the same time: was that possible?).

"John," Sherlock said, equally softly, said in wonder, in reverence.

"I'm not John or an ordinary dog," the wolf replied, referring to Sherlock's earlier assurance to Henry. "I don't want a human name."

Sherlock looked taken aback. His hand lowered, his eyes studying, his mouth frowning, almost trembling back to tears. "What is your name, then?"

"I call myself the wolf, or John and the wolf if I'm feeling some camaraderie. But...you can call me John. It will...make you feel better." This was an increasingly strange experience, talking with two brains in one mouth. He didn't know which to defer to: what he wanted or what John yearned to say (or yearned to say yet didn't want to: humans were so complicated). John's gaze swept over Sherlock, kneeling in the dirt as if it was a marriage proposal, right at the level of his stomach. "You can get up, you know. I'm not that short currently."

"Oh my God," gaped Lestrade. John abruptly focused on his face, taking in the details of the Inspector's tan, his vacation clothes.

John nodded in greeting, "Greg."

"I'm sorry, but what," choked out a tear-strained Henry, "is going on?"

Sherlock explained, making John snap his gaze back to him, watch Sherlock's mouth move. "This is John, a colleague of mine. I've been searching for him some time. He was...well. He was bitten while on a case and now he's a werewolf." His head quirked in curiously, asking, "Who's Greg?"

"It's my name, if you ever bothered to find out," huffed out the Inspector, seemingly glad for the change to normalcy.

John knew the human him would have chuckled. The wolf had forgotten that facial expression and so remained impassive. "What do you want to happen now?" asked John (Tell me what you want so I can say no).

Sherlock stood, looking like he didn't know what to do with his empty arms, as if he was expecting them to be full of John. His eyes still seemed to be swimming, but his gaze never dropped from John's face. "I want...I want you to come with me. I want to take care of you. Say you will...Please."

John realized that during this entire conversation Sherlock had probably been making deductions, or at least trying to. Trying to understand, to know what happened so he could reverse it, so he could get John back.

The wolf heard John say, "I hurt people, Sherlock. I hate them. I just killed a man because he was on _my_ territory and not under your protection. I almost severely wounded Mycroft and an entire lab full of people. I like the moor."

Sherlock's face darkened and for a beat was silent. "You were at Baskerville?" he said slowly. "You were experimented on and seen by Mycroft?"

"Yes. I broke out."

Sherlock looked livid for the space of a breath. He then composed himself and said, "Lestrade, take Henry home. I'll deal with John."

"Sherlock, I'm not leaving you here with a wer-"

Sherlock snapped, whirling around at spew rage at the Inspector. "For once in your life, do as I say! John won't harm me: if he wanted to he'd done so already!"

Lestrade looked stunned for a minute. He gave Sherlock a look that said, "you will explain later or else" before leading Henry away, the man too shocked by his whole ordeal that night to protest.

Sherlock remained turned away from John until both of the other men were out of sight. "Can we get away from this fog? Would you go someplace else with me?"

"Yes," John said to Sherlock's back. He walked forward and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, guiding the taller man towards the wolf's den. Sherlock stiffened at the touch and once they were at John and the wolf's tree, John stepped three feet of space between them.

Sherlock looked at him once again, eyes cataloguing every move. "What do you mean my protection?"

John sighed. Talking. Explanations. Boring. "When your John Watson first transformed, he made a deal. He let the wolf fuse to him in exchange for your life. I am forbidden to attack you or anybody else you find important."

"My John..." Sherlock didn't finish the sentence, just stared.

"Yes," John continued. "The man you knew. He was _yours_. He had a sister named Harry and blogged about your cases. It seems like a story to me, something I read. I just...Someone started this curse and I have this urge to _end_ them. But I don't know who they are, so I blame everyone. I'm a misanthrope. Not so much now as at the beginning." John remembered how to form a rueful smile. "Killing the entire human race just seems boring now. Too much trouble."

"You have the urge to attack all humans in the vicinity."

"Except you. It's like an instinct. I inherited it like I did the wolf, my self."

"You are different," Sherlock whispered, marveling. "Not like my John."

"He's dead," John and the wolf said. He stepped forward, placing an arm on Sherlock's shoulder and looking him straight in the eye. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Sherlock seemed unable to speak (John thought he'd never see the day). His jaw hung open, his face slack.

John reached his arm around, letting it tease and groom the curls at the base of Sherlock's neck. He stroked it, wanting to purr with the silkiness of the human hair. Sherlock was still. John and the wolf took his as acceptance. "I'm sorry for your loss," he repeated, whispered, watching the twitch of facial muscles. "He's not coming back. It's just me."

John went on his toes and kissed him. Sherlock didn't move for a minute, letting John's lips just mouth at his, suck on the bottom and gently nibble, not enough to break skin. His hand raked a bit through Sherlock's hair, making him bend down more to John's height, relieving John's soft human toes. After the minute, Sherlock seemed to wake up and wake up frightful, all at once clutching John to him, knuckles white on his arms as he frog-marched them against another tree, John's back slamming against the hard bark and making John give a surprised yelp. Sherlock pressed against him, opening his mouth and plunging his tongue into John's, letting John suck it. Sherlock groaned and hands fluttered up and down John's sides, finding his hips and tugging _up_ and grinding. John whined and raked both hands through Sherlock's hair, then framing his face and swishing thumbs across cheekbones, because _oh_, he hadn't felt like this yet. He hadn't even thought.

He thrust his hips downward at the same time as sucking on Sherlock's tongue and the man groaned even louder. Sherlock's hands found their way to John's arse and he squeezed both cheeks, parting them and scooting John even taller. John felt a clothed bulge beneath and snarled (_No)._

John took his hands and pushed against Sherlock, combining his and the wolf's strength. Sherlock stumbled back mid-kiss, his arms suddenly empty and eyes still closed. He opened them to reveal burning confusion, his hair ruffled and his lips swollen. "John, I...please."

"Take off your coat."

As Sherlock numbly complied, John transformed and crawled into his den. Digging his paws into his bedding, he threw it all outside. Going out and transforming back into his human self, John said, "My den isn't big enough for two, sorry."

Sherlock's lips twitched in amusement. John sorted out the bedding, spreading and adding to it to form a larger bed. He took Sherlock's coat and laid it out, hoping it would cushion and warm them both. It was night on the moor and even with Sherlock's warmth his human form was starting to get chilly. Sherlock was trembling without his garment already. "Lie down," John commanded, gesturing to the nest. He smiled with one side of his mouth, showing off his canine. "I'm in charge."


	3. Chapter 3

**Just a warning for readers: John and the wolf ****_really likes sex_****. That being said, I am a wuss and it only gets semi-explicit.**

* * *

John kept going until Sherlock lost his gorgeous voice, until his coughing, trembling cries were reduced to soundless screams from the perfect 'O' of his mouth. They had been pressed together, clutched to each other, grasping, Sherlock remembering the shape of him, and John learning the body that John Watson gave himself to protect.

When Sherlock was finally allowed to sink into sleep, John transformed. His wolf form would keep them both warmer. With his mouth, he dragged the edge of Sherlock's coat over the man and scooted his back to Sherlock's torso. When he woke up a few hours later, the sun weakly shining down but still hurting his eyes, Sherlock's arms were around him, the man's face in his fur.

"Come back to London with me," Sherlock mumbled, his voice barely a faint whisper from so much overuse, squeezing him for emphasis. "I want you to."

The wolf and John just hummed (Go back to sleep, Sherlock).

But he continued, "We're right next to Regent's Park and you could run around. Your abilities would be invaluable on cases, especially the chasing portions. A credit card can more easily buy you any food you want if you'd rather not hunt. We could take trips to the country or even here as often as possible. We could...we could do what we just did every night until we perish."

John growled.

"John?" Sherlock sat up a bit, letting go John only to start stroking John's side, petting the fur. "John, you're amazing, fantastic, brilliant! You've never been the most luminary of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable! I need you. I've missed you. I-" Sherlock buried his face in John's fur again, tightening his grip on a thatch. "I didn't like it."

John turned around and snuffled his nose into Sherlock's chest. The man Sherlock was talking about was dead. John and the wolf in a city? So many smells and noise and lights and it gave John a headache just thinking about it. But he still breathed against the marks he had littered on Sherlock's chest, nuzzled against the belly he had scratched and palmed in joy. He didn't want to discuss it. He didn't want to think about it.

Sherlock had also been drugged last night, inhaling enough of the fog to have an effect. His trembling was part arousal and part terror. Could be anyway. He didn't smell of fear now and his heart was beating against John, his lungs breathing in air that John could hear and smell. John liked the feeling.

"John, _say_ something. I've been searching for you since you left. I never stopped. Please, I can't-I don't want. I only came to Baskerville because of the hound rumors. You'd be surprised how many giant dog rumors there are in the UK and I couldn't investigate them all. So many boring cases, dead ends, lost pets in the park. When I get ahold of Mycroft..." Sherlock left the sentence unfinished whisper-soft, maybe his voice finally giving out. Sherlock still clutched at John's fur though, trying to give his meaning. This Sherlock was so clingy.

John hummed again, turning over to present Sherlock with his warm back. Sherlock wrapped his arms around him, hugging him from behind (Sleep, Sherlock, just sleep for now. We've been awake through the night).

IiIiIiIiI

When next John and the wolf woke, it was nightfall again. Sherlock was still there, dozing beside him (he must have really pushed himself, ignored everything else besides the chase: that's what the story said he did, without John there to slow him down). John felt rested, nonetheless. Perhaps had to pee.

He sniffed around the area after he getting up to relieve himself. The dead man from yesterday had been removed, investigative teams probably kept at a minimum (they hadn't come close to John's hollow at least, hadn't seen a man snuggled to a beast) since Lestrade had seen everything (oh, how the Inspector hated paperwork). Probably called it a wild animal attack. Sherlock's scent never went farther than 10 yards from the wolf's den: he hadn't eaten or drunk anything that day, so he could...He could get...John didn't want to think about it.

John and the wolf dashed back to the sleeping man, transforming in the last few bounds. He paused to look at Sherlock. He had curled towards where the wolf had been, the empty space probably leaving some warmth. At some point, Sherlock had pulled his very rumpled and stained clothes back on, the sight looking almost completely incongruous with the wild surroundings of the moor. Unless Sherlock was a very desperate homeless person. John drew closer. Sherlock had the slightest hint of stubble on his cheek. His hollow face was almost as pale as a corpse, his eye sockets sunk and sooty.

John climbed in the nest, snuggling up to Sherlock's front. The man gave a groggy start, mumbling mostly incoherent half-words. John nuzzled his face against Sherlock's cheek, reveling in the roughness, wondering what Sherlock with a beard would look like, if the bread would be scraggly or smooth or silky. He moved to the other cheek as Sherlock's arms found their way around his torso, wrapping them together. The consulting detective threaded fingers in John's hair.

"John, we need to talk-"

John and the wolf would have none of that. He kissed Sherlock's chapped lips, running fingers against Sherlock's prominent ribs, nudging him over until Sherlock was on his back and John was straddling him. Sherlock started caressing any part of John he could reach: thighs, calves, back, arms. He made a little needy noise, but tried to pull away all the same, hoarsely croaking between John's chasing kisses, "John, we need to discuss-"

John went to unbuttoning Sherlock's shirt and suit, opening them wide. He let go of Sherlock's mouth with a pop and moved down, dragging his teeth across Sherlock's chest. The man was so thin that John thought he could feel Sherlock's heart beating, his lungs stutter for air. John licked Sherlock from navel to collarbone is one stripe and Sherlock splayed his hands against the nest and gasped. "John, _talk_."

John just rose to thrust his hips against Sherlock's groin. He then kissed his way south (this man, so thin, so wasted, needed to eat, drink, Sherlock, Sherlock could _die_ like this, Sherlock wasn't leaving him to take care of himself), licking Sherlock's nipples until they pebbled, and unzipping Sherlock's trousers and taking his cock out of his pants. John reached out to pin down Sherlock's wrists as he swallowed his length down.

"_Fuck_," Sherlock swore. John looked up to see Sherlock still staring at the night sky, but his back was arching upwards.

IiIiIiIiIiI

John and the wolf was tempted to keep him like that, trying to break Sherlock, to see how far the consulting detective go, if he would let John and the wolf give him orgasms until he died of dehydration. Because Sherlock was wasting away, drying out on the moor, drunkenly unable to say no, denied his desired companion and his desire so long it was now being overloaded. John didn't really care or notice refractory periods, he just focused on kissing through those, or letting Sherlock doze until John was sure enough time had passed. But Lestrade would surely come looking for Sherlock soon, worried that John had eaten him or something (in a sense, he had). So the next day when the sun was up at almost it's highest, John was human when he woke Sherlock up.

Sherlock's eyes widened when he realized. He was so fragile, so vulnerable. In the stories, Sherlock was arrogant, all-knowing, unstoppable. Here, in what John had reduced him to, he was a child. Wide-eyed and pleading. Glazed in madness and desperation.

"I need you to get me some clothes," John said to Sherlock's open face.

Sherlock started, weakly grasping at John to weakly pull him into a sloppy kiss. "Johhhhnnnn," he hoarsely whispered, nipping at the wolf's bottom lip, continuing between kisses. "Thank you. I'll take care of you. I promise. I'll take you wherever whenever you need it."

John returned a kiss and deepened it beyond speech. When he stopped, Sherlock whined, eyes still shut tight, hands placed on the sides of John's face, thumbs frantically caressing John's temples. "I _meant_," John clarified, touching his forehead to Sherlock's. "That we need to go into town so you can eat and give statements to the police. I don't want Lestrade coming here. It's easier for you to get me clothes than for me to steal them."

Sherlock's whole body went still. "You're not coming to London?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Sherlock pulled away and John could feel him deducing, analyzing, data-gathering. Did these processes really still function in his starved brain? "But you're coming to town with me?"

"Yes. I'd take what you can get in this sort of situation."

"You won't kill any tourists I assume." The story Sherlock was back. The brain, the virgin, the machine. John wasn't sure he liked it as much.

"You assume correctly. Unless one tries to mug us." John stood and offered a hand to help Sherlock up. "I'll be a wolf in the meantime, easier for you to get close." Sherlock took John's help. He stood up fine, but immediately wobbled. "Easy there. Steady." John put one of Sherlock's arms around his shoulders. He snatched up clothes and handed them to Sherlock to put on. The detective kept at least a hand on John, whether for balance or to remember he was here, John didn't know. But they finally got him dressed, albeit is in very dirt-stained, tattered clothing. John picked leaf bits out of Sherlock's hair and off the back of the coat while Sherlock did his front.

"Alright, ready? I'll be like this until we reach the end of the trees and then I'll have to transform." Explanations: a very Watson thing to do. Sherlock just nodded. John kept an arm on Sherlock's waist just in case until they reached the end of the trees, the unobstructed sunlight bathing their skin in warmth. John wiggled his toes. He wasn't around in the day very much and had forgotten how nice it could be. How bright.

With a nod to Sherlock, he transformed.

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

The day wasn't half-bad.

Sherlock checked back into the pub he was staying at, bringing out to John, to his surprise, some of Watson's old clothes. There were his scuffed up shoes, his comfortable, worn jeans, his white socks with a toe worn out, his soft cotton undershirt, his red button up, and his old waterproof jacket. They didn't smell like him anymore, only of Sherlock and wooden dresser drawers. John had put them on and Sherlock's breath had caught a little, gazing at him, taking him in. The wolf had felt John's eyes go soft as he murmured a thank you. Sherlock merely nodded.

John followed Sherlock into the pub, the familiarity of its scene rushing back to him. Sherlock showed him to his room and John dug around until he found Sherlock's cash while the man showered. John was sitting on the bed when Sherlock came out, the detective's thin, battered (John's own doing plus some others') body, blossoming with bruises, scabbed with scars, newly on display. John looked at it for a long time before meeting Sherlock's eyes. It was only then that the detective got dressed.

John was surprised to find the pub owners were his previous "owners" at the cave and was then disappointed to find that they were vegetarians. Sherlock ate though and John picked at his food, pouting and dreaming of raw rabbit.

The Human World, the wolf decided, was a place of soft things. Soft vegetables, soft clothes, soft chairs, soft gestures. When Sherlock was finished and very full, probably ready to sleep again, John reached over and traced his fingers under the detective's jaw, ending at his chin and swiping his thumb over his lower lip. It was a place of softly spoken words like "Lestrade is still waiting. You need to phone him at least." It was a place of soft pain and weary expressions, the kind worn by the police people that took Sherlock's statements or even Lestrade or even later by Henry Knight, who they visited and who wrote Sherlock a check with a soft, heavy amount of zeros. John refused to answer any queries, but just stood by, emanating a soft presence that was for Sherlock's sole benefit. It was a place for a soft kiss when it was all over, a leaning forward and happy meeting, a chaste, 'it's alright now.' The stories said that humans could be violent, could be full of war and anger, but here, now, they just seemed tired.

Tired and soft.

John consented to sleep in Sherlock's bed that night. John wondered how many nights Sherlock had actually booked the room for.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Sherlock slept until well past noon. John watched him, watched the sun's shadows move across the room, sword-shafts of light through the blinds. The room's heater made moving impossible. He dozed intermittently, thought he would sink into the mattress and then that Sherlock would wake up alone.

Sherlock woke with a sucked in breath and "John?"

John rolled over on top of him. "Hey," he said. The wolf thought this was a little undignified.

He planted his hands on mattress on either side of Sherlock's face and lifted himself up, so he was a bit above the man. Sherlock's eyes, a dark grey in this light, focused on him. "I have an idea," John and the wolf said. Before Sherlock could speak, John kissed him, molded his mouth and massaged it against the man's lips. "I stay here. It's better for me. I don't belong in London. But you do. The stories say you do. You like it there. You are like the city."

Sherlock interrupted, "I'm not leaving you." His eyes turned to steel. His hand cupped John's face. John leaned into the touch, nuzzling the palm and digits with his nose. He licked it in play.

"You can come here on the weekends. The ones where you don't have cases. Bring me some Tesco steaks. I want to see what those taste like. Especially if you could add those little bread crumbs."

Sherlock's eyebrows arched, but his eyes softened again. "You want me to be your delivery service."

"I don't know how to cook. Nor have access to a kitchen."

"You would if you came home."

"It's not my home. It's _your and John's home_. How many times do I have to tell you, _he's dead_."

Sherlock looked like he'd been slapped in the face. He withdrew his hand and before his expression could become more broken, John closed his eyes and kissed him. Sherlock barely responded. John and the wolf did not like being ignored. He bit Sherlock's shoulder enough to bruise.

Sherlock writhed and clawed at him, flailing his legs to find purchase and kick him off. John held on, letting his wolf strength bleed through. He then felt the warm trickle of blood, dribbling from his mouth and staining Sherlock's skin and bed-sheets. John pressed himself down, seized Sherlock's wrists, and pinned the man down. After a minute, the detective stopped struggling, only breathed hard, thin chest pumping up and down. He stilled, waiting for John's next pronouncement.

John let go. Sherlock's shoulder was lined with bleeding teeth marks.

John looked in Sherlock's eyes, trying to use the stories to decipher what their depths were seeing. It reminded him of concrete splashed with rain. A gash in the pupil. Without letting go of Sherlock's wrists, John leaned down to nuzzle the side of Sherlock's face. The detective leaned away, probably disgusted. Well, good. That's what John and the wolf had been aiming for, hadn't it?

All at once, John and the wolf rolled off of Sherlock. The man stayed in the bed, panting and staring at the ceiling. John gathered Watson's clothes, putting them on as he said, "You know where to find me."

He left for the moor.

IiIiIiIiIiI

He was finally, _finally_ at peace after that.

He was sure Sherlock wouldn't come after him (regret?) and he was free to roam the moor as he pleased, ignoring the steady stream of tourists. He ate animals, rolled in the grass, soaked up the heat of sunbaked rocks, lined his den with fresh leaves and soft fur and torn up strips of his old clothes. The fear-fog was dismantled, which was sad, but no great loss. He was strong now and could defend himself.

Sherlock didn't show that weekend. This was excellent (really?).

Who did show were some of Mycroft's lackeys, trying to no doubt punish him for the state of his brother. Their throats were mauled and bodies dragged about 50 miles north, so Mycroft would have to do extra paperwork to have anybody look into Dartmoor.

A year passed. Two. Three.

Five.

Ten.

John had a sudden urge to go to London.


	4. Chapter 4

**Welcome back! This chapter has lots of despair. It will be balanced out by next chapter's utter fluff.**

* * *

The wolf ran until he reached the suburbs. It was still country enough where people used clotheslines and he snagged the necessary items out of people's back gardens. It was easier to be in his human form in London: it attracted less notice and muted out all the overwhelming smells and sounds (though his human form's hair, even when braided, was long enough for a woman's now-he hadn't ever bothered to get it cut, so he still got some intrigued glances).

As he walked to 221b, the city was still smudged with dirt, but the sky was clearer from smog and most cars had stopped belching smoke. Bicycles were more popular and the streamlined fashion baffled him-people seemed more androgynous, (maybe his hair wasn't that strange: was something else tipping them off? John and the wolf wanted to growl to make them stop peering). The Thames was clearer though he still did not fancy as swim. Mobiles were everywhere, everyone constantly chattering to each other. Some people seemed to be even attending university lectures via mobile. At least the weather was as dreary and wet as ever.

When he finally reached 221b, he had to kick the door in. No one had answered. Perhaps Mrs. Hudson had died.

He walked into Sherlock's flat's sitting room to the detective trying to hang himself by jumping off a chair and into a noose.

"Of course you're here," Sherlock said. Then he jumped.

"You son of bitch," John said, running forward to catch the man.

He caught him and cut the man down.

Sherlock clung to him and cried.

IiIiIiIiIiI

"How many people have you killed?"

"I dunno, about 11...13?"

"Does that include my John?"

"Yes."

"Who else?"

"Some of Mycroft's men. That man that was with you. Some of the more diligent hunters."

"Hunters?"

"I got careless and some tourists snapped photos of me. Word got out that the supernatural demon-dog was real and some famous hunters wanted a go. One crew specialized in the supernatural and I had to scare them off. Dead bodies did the trick. None of it was on telly or the papers. Too much gore." John smiled. His canines glinted in the semi-darkness of the flat in twilight.

"You're a monster."

"Yes."

"You're proud of this label."

"You were once called freak. I've been following you on television and the newspapers. Pop into the pub every once in a while. They don't call you freak anymore. Everyone calls you 'amazing' and 'genius.' You're like a superhero."

"Moriarty and I have been having our games."

"With it's own trail of dead."

"I have nothing left."

"Except a werewolf that can't let you die."

"..."

"What about Lestrade? Molly? Mrs. Hudson? Mycroft?"

"..."

"They want you to live, Sherlock. To be more than a case-solving machine. They need you."

"Mrs. Hudson passed in the night. Molly and Greg are married with five children. Mycroft is...complicated."

"See. You have a life. I'm sure the children adore you."

"But I don't have-_he's gone-_"

"Shhhhhh, I'm sorry, love. Come here." (While running, John had thought hard on how to endear him to Sherlock, make the man let him back until Sherlock was better. He'd watched people at the pub, the close companions and families, and he noticed that they had nicknames for each other, little pet names, and John had picked "love" for Sherlock because it was personal and familiar but not as silly as "darling" and more aristocratic than "duckie").

John leaned forward and softly kissed the man before him. Sherlock trembled. A shaky hand cupped John's face, moving to the back of his neck, threading through his long hair, pulling him closer. The other hand pawed at his shirt, rumpling into the stolen fabric. John remembered the soft human world. He added the hushed thump of clothes dropped on the floor to it.

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

In the morning, Sherlock asked, "Will you stay this time? I know you're not him, but I-"

"I will stay until I'm allowed to go, love."

"John?"

"His last will and testament."

Sherlock rolled on top of him, pressed his nose into John's neck, and breathed in. "God, you smell like him." He moved to press his ear to John's chest. "You breathe like him. That's his heart beating."

"I know."

"Can you die? Is it possible?"

"Not easily."

"But you do age: your hair is graying. Your wrinkles have increased."

"Your hair is graying at the temples. Crow's feet line your eyes. The veins on your hands are beginning to stand out. You age, though I think sorrow has strengthened the process. And I-" John clutched at his own chest. "I think John's heart will break when yours stops. I am two person united. The wolf can sustain itself, but it'll be like half his brain has died. I feel he-I-will die too. Does-does that make sense?"

Here he was, being a Watson again, explaining things. Slowing down for the human. Exposing himself. He would have to now. The instinct told him, _the_ _promise_ _said_. He loved the moor. It was the wolf's heart if not John's, but this one needed tending. If he stayed human, the noise and smell of London would be bearable.

John asked, "Can we order Chinese take away with a ridiculous amount of meat courses? Or is that still not done for breakfast?"

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "You're not going to fuck me into exhaustion again?"

"I will fuck you on every surface of this flat, but first we need you to start eating again."

Sherlock barked out a laugh and rose to fetch a phone and take away menu.

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

John's new life was a bit bumpy at first, but eventually he adjusted.

The flat was a disaster zone when he first came. Chemicals lined the bookshelves, in front of or stacked on books, and more books formed small mountain ranges on the floor. Sherlock's case notes were meticulously kept and ordered, still in a paper system too, even in file cabinets. The walls had letters knifed into them (apparently Sherlock had taken up knife throwing as a hobby) and an assortment of scars from experiments (the ceiling in the kitchen was almost black from scorching). The fridge was unusable for food and one half of the kitchen sink was full of mold under observation. The skull still grinned from the mantelpiece and Sherlock had collected various small skeletons such as rats, rabbits, and lizards in jars. Red string was littered everywhere for connecting things and making diagrams. Fancy looking science equipment took up two tables.

The floor, which John first attacked in his cleaning regime, had archeological layers of debris, from "boring" papers, food crumbs, tattered clothes, bits of disguises, and, once, to John's utter horror, a mummified human thumb (WHY?). Sherlock's own room was clean, which signaled the almost zero amount of time he spent in there, and John didn't go near Watson's. It seemed not right. He already tortured Sherlock enough.

Because it was something to do and the mess was a personal affront (no self-respecting wolf would live with it), John cleared and hoovered the floor, organized the floating papers, washed the windows, and used Sherlock's card to buy bookshelves and his own clothes online. He stuck the bookshelves in Sherlock's room and organized the books, though it made the bedroom more of a library (it still had a bed in it though and John and the wolf and Sherlock slept there. He confiscated a drawer for his clothes.

The entire kitchen was disinfected (John hated the cleaning fluid smell, but it was necessary). Sherlock has a minor strop over the mold and they shouted about it. Usually Sherlock would come home and merely blink in bewilderment at John's cleaning progress and later shout 'where did you put it!?' when he couldn't find some odd or end. But for the kitchen sink John roared back. They consented to letting Sherlock have an entire cupboard to let fester whatever wanted and said cupboard could have a special movable light from the internet for experiments requiring it. John told Sherlock he wanted the sink because he wanted to learn how to cook.

Because human food could be bloody fucking amazing.

The meat. It was _cooked_. And _flavored_. With all sorts of _sauce_.

John gobbled up everything he could lay his hands on, going in wider and wider circles from the flat, exploring every restaurant that wasn't vegetarian. The little plastic card got him everywhere.

Eventually, Sherlock would come home to elaborate, home-cooked dinners with multiple courses featuring several different kinds of meat and taking multiple hours to eat. But he would eat or at least nibble each dish under John's stern gaze. Mainly, he re-enacted his day for John, miming out deductions and the victim's positions. John told him he was amazing and fantastic and brilliant, because he truly was. He was the most fantastic and brilliant man John or Watson had ever met.

John never actually went to crime scenes. Like Watson's bedroom, it wasn't his place. Besides Sherlock, he didn't like people and having dead people around would tempt him too much to kill any of the annoying ones in the vicinity (Anderson and Donovan had finally transferred to another division, thank God: at least no mess from them). Sherlock was a regular consultant at the police force, well known in all departments and working with the majority of the Inspectors. Despite Watson's blog's sudden end, Sherlock was famous in his own right, a brilliant gem in the crime-solving community. Sometimes press would crowd their door, but it wasn't a rabid fan base: no camping on his doorstep or dressing up like him or following him about (John had told the wolf a story of John doing this for his favorite band in uni, the Sussex Vampires. The wolf thought this reaffirmed his assumption that humans were strange and annoying.).

Sherlock's fame had grown slowly upward over the years. It's not like there was a lack of exciting cases to give him. Moriarty made sure of it.

Another reason John wanted to lay low was because of this Moriarty. He and Sherlock were in a personal war, a never-ending battle of wills. The presence of Watson would have made Sherlock unwilling to play such a game since his heart would have been such an easy pawn. But Moriarty thought (rightly, technically) that Watson was dead and Watson hadn't been around for ten years and he had Sherlock's full attention. Sherlock's life, on the surface at least, was all about the puzzles. It was a status quo preferable to John, because Moriarty learning that some semblance of John was alive and kicking would make him do something drastic to get Sherlock's attention back. As it was, Sherlock's caseload was almost like a regular 9-5 job, though with severe overtime night hours sometimes.

So John only left the flat to run as a human, running on human legs in Regent's park, fetching groceries, borrowing cooking books from the library, eating at restaurants. On nights he had to transform, he did, but he stayed in, curling next to Sherlock on the couch as they watched telly. It was strange, being back here. It was his birthplace in a sense. He had been born in violence, amongst Sherlock's screams and Watson's confusion and yet here he was, bending Sherlock over the worktable, showering in heavenly warm water, reading how to make food melt in a person's mouth, scrubbing away fungi, _being domestic_.

It reminded him of the cave, with the two pub owners. At least there wasn't any chew toys. If he chose, he could let people know he existed, follow Sherlock to crimes. When he was frustrated and homesick and no clients were around, he would become his true self, just enjoy the senses and fur and familiar warmth. He couldn't go back to the moor, not yet, his instincts told him to stay. Sherlock was not okay.

The detective's body was filling out at least. It had been bones with some meat ten years ago, but upon John's arrival at 221b Sherlock looked like he was constructed of sticks. John watched, fascinated, the muscle regrow, sharpen, harden with strength. The eye sockets and cheeks filled out, the hair grew back its shine, though continued to get threads of gray. It was like watching time in reverse. The eyes themselves still seemed haunted, not quite all there. Distracted even in their most intimate moments. He was still shattered. It was just the physical marks that were leaving his body (the hidden pattern of bruises and bites John decorated his body with remained).

"John," he asked. "Can we get married?"

"I-what? Why?"

"It's something I wanted to do with him, but I didn't-couldn't."

"I'm not him, love."

"But he-Watson-"

John would kiss him at that point because to continue talking would be too painful.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Mycroft eventually grew the balls to visit the flat. John thought he would, eventually, but not without Sherlock here. Sherlock meant safety for others. John wasn't sure what he would do if the brother showed up without him.

Turns out nothing as exciting as ripping his throat out.

"Hello, John."

The impeccable "minor government official" was a well dressed as ever, fine, soft hands fingering the smooth wood handle of his umbrella as he turned the corner to enter the flat. John had opened the door to the flat and backed up to the kitchen's glass entrance as soon as he realized the step on the stairs wasn't Sherlock's. He was in human form, in case the step had been a client's. John usually didn't interact much with clients, just making them tea and then making them wait until Sherlock returned. As soon as the detective returned, he hid in Sherlock's room until the sound of voices ceased.

But this was Mycroft.

Like his brother, he had aged, though not as drastically. Light strands of gray ran through his hair, though not in the single curl on his pale forehead, and his knuckles were more defined on his hands, more than John remembered of last time. His eyes were alert and dark as ever, darting around the flat to deduce objects, but also somewhat lost in the extra folds of his face, his jowls beginning to sag. The suit was a light gray that accented the rich red colors still remaining his hair and it was cut to try and hide his slight stomach paunch. He wasn't _unattractive_, per se, not in the least, more resembling those smoky older men from the telly. Heck, John would fuck him, but he doubted either of the Holmes brothers would appreciate the gesture. And he wasn't in the mood. He could still practically taste Sherlock in his mouth.

Mycroft's eyes turned to John, looking him up and down. "You're human, I see." Mycroft's voice seemed to skate over the constants and pronounce all the marbles of vowels. It wasn't like Sherlock, who, when confronted, would transform sentences into bullets and knives, make sounds crack like whips, no matter the exact words used.

"I am," John replied. "What do you want?" John felt his shoulders tense. It wasn't this man's fault, he reminded himself. The wolf was wrong. Killing this man would hurt Sherlock, already fragile Sherlock.

"I'm merely here to confirm that you are, indeed, back among us," Mycroft said. He looked down at the floor and tapped his brolly on his shoe. "And thank you for what you've done for my brother. He is...better than previously."

John quirked an eyebrow at him. "He's eating, is what you mean. Yes, I make sure."

"But you do not accompany him on his exploits nor record them."

"I'm not John Watson, Mycroft. When will you people get it into your heads-" He felt his hackles rise. The itch to transform was bearing down, creeping closer. He tried again, glaring, "Look. John _died_ saving Sherlock. He made me promise to keep him alive. That's what I'm doing."

"And when you perceive he no longer needs your help?"

"Then I leave for the moor. It's my home. More so than this, anyway."

"That's not true."

John growled. "Oh?"

Mycroft glanced around the room. "Your presence is felt in the arrangement of the everyday objects. Your scant belongings have designated places around the flat. You cook and clean and have invested energy and time into making this place comfortable for both of you. You enjoy cooking grandiose meals, visiting restaurants, running in Regent's Park. This is your home as much as his." He paused. "You, in your own fashion, love him."

Before John could stop himself, he had punched Mycroft in the face. He grabbed the man by his collar and slammed him against the wall. Mycroft let out a wheezing breathes, eyes darting all over John.

_"What do you want, Mycroft?" _John snarled. Sherlock wasn't his, he was John Watson's, John and the wolf was just a caretaker, he didn't need humans, his original intent was to _destroy_ them.

Mycroft choked. John let go. He flung himself to the other end of the room, curling between the chairs in front of the fireplace. He breathed through his nose. Calm down, calm down. Not a threat. This man is not a threat. He turned away from him, shutting his eyes.

"Moriarty," Mycroft croaked, "has learned of your existence. Though you don't go out with my brother, it's obvious his physical and mental state has improved. You do leave this flat sometimes, and, though bundled up and through the back door to avoid the press, Moriarty knows there is someone here. I'm surprised it took him this long. Perhaps he is so focused on the game that he neglects all else." Mycroft said the last sentence like it was poison, letting the distaste roll off his tongue. "As long as Sherlock solves his morbid puzzles, he's satisfied. But you, once again, my dear werewolf, are changing the main player."

John turned his back to Mycroft. He put his chin between his knees and his hands over his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut. He breathed.

But he could still hear: "I expect you to protect him in the areas I can't. It is, after all, your duty, as you so put it, for killing the love of his life."

John felt a stab of something akin to guilt in his chest. He let out a whine.

Mycroft left.

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

When Sherlock returned, John was still like that on the floor. The wolf heard Sherlock pause in the doorway, and then move quickly towards him.

"John, what are you-what's happened?"

John let out an ear-splitting whine as he transformed. As a wolf, he bounded towards Sherlock, filling his arms. Sherlock caught him, but the wolf was too heavy, forcing Sherlock to kneel on the floor. John licked his face, his hair, his neck, his hands: any exposed part he could reach. He was letting out all the cries that Mycroft has built up, had let to fester until the detective came home.

Between wolf kisses, Sherlock got in, "John, what on earth is the matter?"

John just let out louder whine. He curled up against Sherlock and the man automatically put his arms around him, buried his nose in John's fur. "John, you have to _talk_."

_But what if I love you? What if Moriarty is coming for me? What if Moriarty takes you? Moriarty is the arch-villain in the stories. John Watson was wary of him, scared. What if something happens and I love you? What if we both die? What about the moor?_

"Mycroft was here, wasn't he?" Sherlock asked. "His smell lingers on the doorstep, that awful new cologne Anthea bought him. What did he do to you?" Sherlock's voice was suddenly stern, menacing, dripping deadly promises. "Are you hurt?" Sherlock scrambled up, hands running all over John's tightly wound body. After a few minutes, "You are physically uninjured. Something he said then. What could be say that would bother someone like you? And to this extent."

_I might love you, you fucking idiot._

The certainty of it settled into his bones, the rightness of the statement. His very core seemed to sigh and stretch and accommodate and fit perfectly the feeling. It was a terrible pronouncement, a shackle, an uncomfortable truth laid down. Yet...

It meant Sherlock was his mate.

It made sense. They were already living like a pair. Was that so terrible?

_What about the moor with its wind and darkness?_

He could take Sherlock with him. They could go, hide, disappear from Moriarty and Mycroft and everybody. Hadn't that been what John had prophesized all those years ago? That Sherlock would take him and run.

He looked up to Sherlock's face, still looming over in worry. Even after so many months of living with John, the man still looked worn. He even smelled like exhaustion. His hands still shook sometimes, clattering microscope slides, lines in books jumping, trembling against John at night. He would lock John out from his room or disappear to Watson's to do Gods knows what. Sometimes John heard him speak in there. Sometimes he would be speaking to John and suddenly go slack, stare into the distance, refuse to look at him anymore. Grief still weighed down his movements, hung at the bags under his eyes, drooped his shoulders down. His thoughts were like lightening, but sometimes that storm cloud would trip, stutter, and shut down with the realization that it had lost its primary audience.

John couldn't take Sherlock from 221b. Not yet at least. He needed stability, strength, routine, people, cases. He needed to confront his loss, acknowledge it. Though it had been ten years: if this was what Sherlock was like now, then what about before John? The wolf had sniffed out drug paraphernalia and tossed it. Sherlock's fingers had fading yellow stains, the pale crooks of his arm had healed small rosebud bruises. John didn't know much else.

He had to do something. He had to give Sherlock hope. Tell Sherlock that he would take care of him. Watson's wish and his. Then they could disappear.

He thought about being human.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Apparently, John had thought long enough to make Sherlock fall asleep. He slept more and more now, more than was mentioned in the stories. He was curled against John's fur, fingers tangled into it. Transforming, John stood and picked him up, one arm under his knees and the other wound around his back. They were both a bit old for sleeping on the floor.

The movement startled Sherlock away. Groggy, he asked, "Tell me what happened." He placed his arms around John's neck. Nuzzling into John's chest, he muttered, "Don't try to avoid it."

"Did you eat lunch?" John started moving towards their bedroom.

"No."

"No wonder you're so tired then. Food is important, Sherlock."

"Don't try to change the subject."

"I want to tell you something."

"I wish you would."

They had reached the bedroom. John set the detective down and pulled off his coat and scarf. Like a mother with her cranky child, John undressed a mildly protesting Sherlock and then redressed him in his night clothes, even put on his blue silk dressing gown. "Stay here a moment please." Sherlock just squinted at him, cocking his head to the side.

John toed on some pants before leaving for the kitchen. He returned with hot tea and buttered toast. Sherlock smiled and both of them sat on the bed, munching their impromptu dinner. When they finished, John kissed him awhile. Gently. Soft. Human.

Sherlock ran fingers through his shorter hair (John had Sherlock cut it with a pair of kitchen shears, for convenience's sake. He didn't need a shaggy coat in a flat with heating) and moaned. John pulled down his pants and then Sherlock's pants and then entered him, stroking him, making his stomach do slow rolls of bliss. Sherlock cried out and John swallowed the noise greedily. As he reached his own climax, he had the faint thought that he wished he or Sherlock were female, so that this would mean a child. Puppies.

But they couldn't so John just kissed Sherlock some more.

He eventually got up to fetch a rag for clean up. When they were clothed and dry and cozy and under-the-blankets warm, John spoke, "I want to tell you something, love."

Sherlock said nothing. Waited.

John scooted away, drew up the blankets around him so it would be like he had his true wolf fur. He looked at Sherlock. Sherlock was just watching.

John and the wolf told him the last memory of John Watson. The one that was his and the wolf's.

Even before it was over, Sherlock was crying. At the end he hiccupped and clutched at John's face, kissing him, pushing him down, surrounding him while muttering, pleading, shaking. John hummed and returned the kisses that fell on his lips and stroked Sherlock's hair. Soothed.

Sherlock quieted. John's chest was damp from tears.

The detective's head was on John's heart, ear pressed to heartbeat, when he finally spoke, "I should tell you something."

John shifted a bit. He put a hand to Sherlock's hair, stroked the bottom curls on his neck. This wasn't part of the plan. Sherlock's voice was a bit hoarse, still recovering from crying. John liked the gravelly edge though, the almost pornographic deepness. Sherlock would have made an intimidating wolf.

Sherlock continued, his tone almost flat. "When you first turned, I tried to find your...creator." John stiffened. He hadn't even thought about it, coming back. "I went to all the houses within a twenty mile radius of Regent's Park, beginning with those close to where you were bitten. There was one, a foster home. They had a girl with them with a slight predilection of disappearing at night. No pattern since, I assume, they rarely noticed her absence. She must have had some level of control over her transformations, at least preferring to live in her human form during the day and participate in a normal human life. By the time I had found foster family though, she had left. Unhappy with the situation apparently. They didn't seem very happy foster parents to say the least." John stroked Sherlock's curls rapidly, transfixed by the story.

"I tried to track her down, use the Homeless Network, follow reports of roaming dogs or animal attacks, but she, like you, must of skipped London entirely for the time. It was at that point that I expanded my search to the whole country."

John's heart pumped in his ears.

Sherlock's voice grew small. "By the end of the month, I did find her, though too late to be of any use. She showed up at Bart's, of all places, on one of Molly's slabs. Died of animal mauling. She must have returned to London and found a pack that took a disliking to her." John closed his eyes.

In the softest voice, Sherlock finished, "Her name was Alice Emilia Devonfort. She was fifteen."

IiIiIiIiIiI

"I want you to take me to see Greg and Molly and their children."

Sherlock dropped his toast. They were munching breakfast (more like lunch: both Sherlock and John had been reluctant to go anywhere today) in bed again, plates of fried eggs with ketchup and toast liberally spread with butter and jam, accompanied with black tea. Sherlock was researching something on his laptop and John was alternating between eating and mussing his nose into Sherlock's hip (human noses were so useless next to a wolf's, only picking up the most dominant smells, but they also added something, a specific human-Sherlock tang that was lost on canines), the food piled on his other side.

John pressed his face into Sherlock's hipbone, ignoring the toast and the new explosion of breadcrumbs on the laptop and Sherlock peering at him through his reading glasses (newly acquired two weeks ago, at John's insistence). John added his arms to the fray, wrapping them around Sherlock's waist and tugging him closer.

"Pardon?" Sherlock asked. John could feel him analyzing, his laser eyes scanning. "You...never go out. Unless for food. Why are you suddenly...? You puzzle me exceedingly, John." A pause. "Is this something to do with Mycroft? You never told me what happened. Not exactly."

John made an indeterminate groan. Questions. Human questions. Minding the pile of food on his other side, John rolled over and rubbed his eyes. "I...want to study them."

"You're interested in experiencing firsthand the dynamics of a human family."

"Yes."

"You understand that the presence of another will alter their behavior."

"Yes. I still want to go. To understand."

"Why?"

"Because."

"John, tell me what happened."

He should tell him. Right? That way he would be more cautious. Take more safety measures. But it had been so long like this, a stagnant game, a creator and a dissimulator, and John and the wolf was interrupting it, _had_ interrupted. John and the wolf would most likely be able to fend off Moriarty if he attacked him, (Moriarty was only human after all, pathetic) but protecting another, another who was broken in the first place, was a different warren of rabbit altogether. Sherlock might embrace death, use it as an excuse. Kill them both.

What would John Watson do? Tell the sod, he thought. He will find out soon enough anyway. He rolled to his side again, looking up at Sherlock from the blankets.

"Mycroft came by to say that Moriarty knows about me."

John sat up, watching Sherlock startle and look completely taken aback. But then his eyes met John's, keeping his gaze steadily. He reached across the empty space between them and took hold of John's chin, swiping his thumb along his lower lip once. His eyes seemed to be burning as he said, "I won't let him hurt you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello! As promised last week, this chapter is mostly (obscenely long) fluff. It's a bit of a turning point for the wolf and the following chapters will probably have a lighter tone as the wolf explores different way to 'help Sherlock,' which is more or less code for 'humanize himself.' WaffleNinja noted that the interesting thing about werewolves are they struggle with being a good human forced to do more evil things as a wolf. I'm trying to incorporate that more, make it more obvious. My one encouragement is to question John and the wolf as a narrator, especially from this point on. What do you think?**

* * *

Sherlock was agitated on the day he was to take John to see Greg and Molly. Though dressed in his battle armor of suit, coat, and scarf, John, even as a human, could smell the fear on him, the small extra twitch of gloved fingers, the nervous turn of the wrist, the needless, impatient tap of the foot. Sherlock led a human John and the wolf as far as the back door in an almost affected state.

"I'm going to turn into myself now. I'll accompany you to the Lestrade's home and we're going to meet them and their youngest child..." The wolf had to stop for a moment to remember the name. "Michael. Like you discussed with Greg on the phone."

Sherlock turned sharply, stepping back to look him in the eyes, search his face. "You won't hurt them. You promised."

"Yes." John and the wolf steadily looked back. Sherlock's eyes were almost translucent today, a blue-grey the only indication the iris was there.

Sherlock's eyes flicked down. Submissive even in his command: "They matter to me, John. You are not to hurt them in any way."

"Yes, love."

John closed the distance between them, softly kissing. A human kiss: a human promise. Sherlock's hands went to either side of John and the wolf's face, the leather sticking and tugging longer in John's hair as he carded through it. John eventually broke it off, stepping back to whisper: "Ready? Transforming now."

Sherlock nodded.

After John was himself again, he shook his fur once, acquainting himself with his favored, though more neglected form. He was determined. His day would help him better understand human affection, and therefore better ground Sherlock. He would see it all for himself instead of reading it Watson's stories. He would ignore any pain from being London's cacophony of noise and smells.

He rubbed against Sherlock's outstretched hand, Sherlock's fingers easily going from carding through John's hair to scratching behind the wolf's ears. Despite himself, John wagged his tail. "The children are going to be all over you, you know. Michael might pull your tail." John bobbed his head up and down in an awkward dog nod. Getting scratched behind the ears by leather gloves was rather nice, come to think of it. Pleasant. Happy.

They exited 221b and followed the maze of narrow alleyways to a more indiscrete street corner. Sherlock hailed a cab and John tried to look as innocent as possible so the driver would let them on: sitting, tail wagging, tongue lolling, stupid expression, intelligence leaving his eyes. Maybe next time he should have Sherlock brush down his hair. Right now it was going in all sorts of directions, which puffed John up and made him look fierce.

The cab driver didn't seem to have any problem though: "Oh! You're Sherlock Holmes! Do you 'ave a dog now? Look at the sweet thing! I used to have one of me own, 'about two years back. Aren't t'ey the most adorable things?

While John and the wolf _hated_ being called adorable, he could not kill this woman. Her misled notion of his being 'adorable' would let them use the cab to get to Greg's. In addition, Sherlock would be put out about so easy a murder case. Complicated was fun: simple was simple was dull. John was already at a disadvantage since his preferred way to kill anything was his teeth and animal mauling would be too obvious. It would also not encourage him to take John to Greg's if the wolf couldn't control himself long enough to get there.

John and the wolf shook himself. He was overthinking this. Was he nervous too? Sherlock opened the cab door, amiably chatting to the not-to-be-killed woman, a friendly mask in place. John and the wolf hopped in.

Sherlock continued the inane chatter until they turned to a neighborhood just out of central London, a tree-lined street with a park in the center. It was quite nice and docile, and John and the wolf doubted if anything as wild as a rabbit lived in the park. Maybe some butterflies in spring.

Sherlock thanked and paid the driver, probably solidifying his ability to take a werewolf on any of the black cabs in London. Sherlock even waved goodbye to the cabbie as she drove off. If John could talk he'd growl: maybe Sherlock was laying it on a bit thick. But then they were walking up the steps to the Lestrade's small house squeezed between all the others with identical whitewashed Victorian fronts. Sherlock knocked sharply twice.

Greg opened the door and John took a breath.

Greg's eyes were immediately, warily, on John. Ten years had not changed the Inspector much: in fact, he pretty much looked the same, perhaps even healthier. His hair was as silver as ever, but his eyes were still full of warm understanding and he had the body of a person who walked frequently-the slim, but robust profile. The perpetual dark circles under his eyes had lessened and the wrinkles around his brow and eyes might equally easily be from laughing and weariness. He let them in and John looked around.

Their walls had light, inoffensive green wallpaper with a light, brown outline of boxes. There were coat hooks, a small table with a bowl for keys and a mirror. A red and brown carpet warmed the wooden floor, but overall the hallway was rather narrow. Greg was in civilian clothes, a simple white blue jumper over a white shirt and jeans, his feet bare. "Hello Sherlock," he said and then nodded down to the wolf. "John."

John gave an awkward dog nod. Greg, bouncing on his heels a bit with awkward nerves said, "Come on in: Molly's just eating breakfast with Michael in the kitchen."

"Thank you both of taking off work," Sherlock said.

"Sure," Greg replied, nonchalantly putting a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and giving it a squeeze (why did he do that?). "We'll just be careful. Come to the sitting room first. I brought some cold cases for you to look at."

Sherlock's eyes light up with delight, his mood suddenly perking with interest (that was a thing, from the telly: doing something together that maybe only the other liked. Or you both enjoyed, but Greg was doing something for Sherlock, when perhaps he himself needed to detox from work). The two men led the way, the hallway opening up to an anteroom with different rooms branching off: a staircase against the wall led upstairs; ahead was the kitchen where John could hear the scrap of spoons and two steady heartbeats, the smell of toast and butter and milk filling his nose; to his left opened up into a sitting room, with bay windows letting in the weak London light; to his right was a closed door that smelled of books and papers, probably Lestrade's office.

Greg and Sherlock sat down on the light blue sofa of the sitting room, facing the window. John and the wolf sat opposite them, but put the sofa's coffee table (currently strewn with case files) between him and Greg and Sherlock. Stuck in the corner like an afterthought was a small fireplace, barely big enough to fit popcorn popper. The sitting room also seamlessly flowed into a formal dining room, old wooden chairs gleaming slightly in the morning light. Cabinets filled with china or curios, landscape paintings, or child artwork lined the walls, and John noticed a child playpen full of toys tucked in a sitting room corner and next to it a play rug that depicted a typical town, streets and houses smiling from their woven positions. Another door-less doorway led off to what John presumed was the kitchen.

Greg's fingers tapped his knees and he gave a huff, eyeing John. "Right. This isn't going to get any less awkward until I say it, but you want to observe?"

John and the wolf nodded and Sherlock said, "Yes."

"Alright, well, you _can_, but fair warning that Michael is three and going to be all over you and pull your hair. He loves dogs. If you attack him, I have a taser in my back pocket and I will use it. I saw you and I know what you can do. He is my child and he treats Sherlock like an uncle. He _matters_. Sherlock said if we tell you he matters your instinct won't let you harm him." Greg bounced his knee a bit. "Okay?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "We get the picture. John's just here to observe, he's promised not to bite, can we please look at the cases now?" Sherlock spoke with more confidence than he had back in 221b. Greg smacked Sherlock on the knee and squeezed it (easy familiarity: this didn't quite match with the stories).

"Right," Greg said. "Right. Let's start with just Sherlock and I. In this sort of situation, unless the dog was being bad or something, we'd mostly ignore it."

"Cases, Greg," Sherlock reminded, impatient, eyes now only for the files and occasionally John. "And we've never knowingly had a wolf watching us solve crimes: how would you know how we would react? The wolf would probably be relevant data."

"Just shut up and look at this unsolved arson," Greg said, shoving the file in Sherlock's lap. "It's from 2005 and the crime scene photographer was shite."

Sherlock opened the file greedily and John and the wolf, still sitting in the corner watched.

Firstly, the relationship between Greg and Sherlock seemed to have changed from that described in the Watson's stories. They had incessant, sometimes biting chatter between them, but Greg also possessed an easy familiarity with Sherlock's body, touching him almost constantly (was this something only friends did, or couples as well?). Though the sofa was wide enough for three, they squished together in the middle like schoolboys, legs touching, Greg teasing and nudging and throwing off Sherlock's insults with easy sarcasm (they talked more than Sherlock and John did in an entire day).

When Sherlock solved the arson case, Greg patted Sherlock on the back and said, "well done," but then his hand snaked up from Sherlock's back to pull on his curls, teasing, "when are you going to get a different haircut you've had this one for years." Sherlock countered that so had Greg and smacked him to let go and they quickly moved onto the next file, again intensely discussing and debating. Sherlock grew cross and delivered cutting insults to the original detective's hack job and Greg feeling obligated to somewhat defend a fellow detective-in-arms. This continued until the third case, when some bit of controversial trivia seemed to blow the friends apart, send them to other ends of the sitting room to have a minor yelling match that ended with John finally barking for them to shut up, Michael was obviously sleeping upstairs, and Sherlock coming over to hold him on the floor, sulking and generally having a strop (friends argued).

Greg went off in a huff to the kitchen, but came back 20 minutes later with tea and Sherlock's favorite kind of chocolate digestives and some mozzarella and tomato sandwiches for lunch and, with slow words and careful coaxing on Greg's part, they were friends again, sitting together on the sofa thigh to thigh (friends forgave each other; friends gave each other their favorite foods during periods of high stress).

It was intensely interesting, to the wolf, the easy intimacy between Greg and Sherlock. It was almost romantic, blurring lines between lover and companion and friend that the television shows had described. Sherlock's brain functioned on some sort of Wonderlandian mathematics (John had read Carroll once, a long time ago), but Greg an essential equation to it all. The whole formula would collapse otherwise. John noticed that he had taken on some of Watson's characteristics-the compliments on brainwork for instance-and the wolf thought this was a conscious, deliberate behavior change on Greg's part. He, like the wolf, was fighting to keep Sherlock here, but in his own way, the way he knew how, and probably for different reasons than John and the wolf. Maybe.

Mid-sentence to Greg explaining his (incorrect) theory on the fourth case, Sherlock said, "We should bring Molly in. John's ready."

Greg spared John a glance. "He's hardly moved, hasn't he?"

Sherlock reached out and John came closer to earn a scratch on the ear. "There's not been much provocative stimulation. And I have a theory that time is a rather different concept for werewolves. Five years go by and they hardly blink." He peered at John now, perhaps needing his glasses (he had purposefully forgotten them at 221b, the vain creature). The wolf, especially in this form, wasn't going to tell Sherlock anything. But the wolf was glad Sherlock was relaxed now, Greg's affability and John's obedience smoothing out any nerves about this encounter.

Greg shrugged and turned his head to shout, "Molls, come in!"

Molly had been upstairs, puttering around from what John could hear. Her movements stilled as Greg's words reached her and her footsteps seemed to shuffle downstairs. Another moment she appeared at the entranceway, her eyes traveling from her smiling husband to Sherlock to John. Her eyes went back to Greg and she gave back an unsure smile. She stepped forward though and leaned down for a brief kiss (should he and Sherlock do that? Kiss whenever entering a room filled with the other?). She then, to John's surprise, gave Sherlock a kiss on the cheek and then mussed up his hair, laughing a little. "How's he been?" Her eyes flicked to John. "Can he understand me?"

"He can understand," Sherlock said. "Though he can't talk back directly unless he's human."

"Oh," Molly said, blushing a little. She stood and looked at John. "Hello then, wolf."

John and the wolf instantly never wanted to kill her. She was the first person in this entire existence to call him by his most preferred name. Not even Sherlock had done that. He smiled as best as dogs could and wagged his tail. Molly seemed to get the message, "Oh, he seems lovely, Sherlock. And very cute-I mean, fierce." She squeezed Sherlock's shoulder (that was the second time they had done that. Was shoulder squeezing a thing intimate humans did?). Molly's eyes twinkled as she went to sit on Sherlock's other side on the sofa and John happily went to her open hands for pets. "Sherlock told me you don't like being called cute. But you should really brush out your coat." She fingered his fur and it felt heavenly. "It would make you look sleek and dangerous. Like James Bond!" Molly giggled.

"Yes, Molly, that sounds wonderful," Sherlock said and John could tell he was rolling his eyes. John noticed how Sherlock's eyes followed Molly's hands on John, the way Molly stroked his head and ears and chin and how it made John wag his tail harder. Greg too seemed emboldened and John felt the man's rougher hands on his back. Sherlock seemed to sit up at that and John was bemused at the thought of Sherlock jealous.

John _was_ tempted by Molly. She smelled interestingly: the hint of strawberry hand lotion and sticky child and Greg and soap and very, very faintly of death. John had never actually been with a woman and he wondered how it was different, beyond anatomy. Watson had plenty of references for this, but that's what they were: references. Not the real experience.

John knew enough of human relations that asking to fuck Molly outright would be in bad taste. He would have to ask Sherlock and Greg first. This Molly or Watson's stories of her did not suggest she would want to do it secretly. Not when she was obviously this happy.

For Molly Lestrade nee Hooper _was_ happy. She had aged more than Greg, the fresh blossom of her youth faded with the toll of bearing five children. She was heavier, her arms and legs more doughy, her once pert breasts sagging slightly, yet still beautiful in their soft roundness. She had the faintest trace of lines on her face, but her brown and blonde-streaked hair shone in its simple ponytail and her dark eyes spoke of many happy moments with her children and husband. She seemed to glow with some inner, peaceful, and confident motherly radiance that had been snuffed out or undiscovered at the morgue Watson had known her at. The contrast between her and the broken Sherlock was almost overwhelming in its intensity.

John's heart ached at that and he reached forward to lick Sherlock's hands, the only ones not currently petting him.

Sherlock mistook the gesture, "Maybe you are a dog, living the lap of attentive luxury as you are."

Before he could think, John growled.

Instantly the hands went away and a tense stillness settled in the room, no one moving. John shook his fur, shaking away the tingling feeling left by alien fingers. He glared at Sherlock and Sherlock glared back.

"Sherlock..." Greg seemed to warn and question in one word. "What's happening? What's John thinking?"

John and the wolf refused to look away. This was a battle of wills and John was going to dominate. He quietly raised his hackles, warning Sherlock to not challenge him.

Sherlock looked away.

John calmed and went back to "his" corner of the room, curling up to continue glaring at the trio on the couch.

The room seemed to let out a breath.

"What happened?" Molly asked, putting an arm around Sherlock. The man had been sitting with his legs open, his elbows resting on his thighs (which touched Molly and Greg's), arms jutting forward with hands clasped together between his legs. It was already a very provocative position, giving John clear access to his cock (sex) and vulnerable belly (death), the only missing element being Sherlock lying on the floor. His whole body language spoke of Sherlock's comfort with John, Greg, and Molly. But now Sherlock bent his head to touch his hands, deepening his submissive pose, showing clear weakness. John and the wolf was pleased. Maybe he could have Molly after all, and Greg and Sherlock too. At once.

That's when the idea hit him. Of why Sherlock and Molly and Greg's relationship had changed from Watson's stories.

They had been mates. All _three_ of them.

Perhaps it had been separately-Sherlock and Molly, and Sherlock and Greg-but the idea was still there. Ten years ago John and the wolf had delivered unto them a shattered, broken Sherlock, in need of purpose and distraction and constant supervision, wanting to forget everything. A Sherlock who wanted to ease the pain of losing John, to forget the doctor wasn't there, to shut off his brain that constantly replayed Watson's death and thought about how it could have gone differently. And what are ways to shut off one's brain? Sleep (temporary). Drugs (attempted). Death (not allowed by Mycroft or the wolf). Orgasms.

And who were invested enough in Sherlock's life, in keeping him here, in love with him enough to go to such lengths? Who had a chance of being accepted by Sherlock, of winning Mycroft's approval, perhaps even Mycroft's encouragement?

Only them. Only Molly and Greg.

John and the wolf looked at them with new eyes, the only people left on the planet who probably knew Sherlock's body as intimately as he did, if not better (they were human. He was not).

Molly's hand was still on Sherlock's back and Greg had a hand on Sherlock's knee. Just look at them, thought John, how they have established touches of comfort, how they are magnetized to his presence, instinctively drew closer together. Sherlock in the middle of the couch. Between them. In a position of invitation and submission.

_Oh_.

John and the wolf had gravely miscalculated. He should encourage Sherlock to visit Molly and Greg more instead of coming to 221b (to him) every night (John and the wolf felt a stab in his chest: why?). This sort of grounding, of positive support, of loving pack was just was Sherlock needed and John was too inhuman to fully provide. Perhaps Sherlock had attempted suicide because his visits to Molly and Greg had been prevented somehow.

John and the wolf had another thought: maybe it was connected to the children? It was something that distinguished the couple from Sherlock-one way or another they had romantically found each other and produced offspring. God, was one of the children Sherlock's? No, no, surely if one or many of the children were of Sherlock's line the detective would visit everyday, would move in, would monitor the child(ren) carefully. He would already be grounded and safe and John would never have had to leave the moor. But the children also mattered to Sherlock, as John had been told repeatedly: was that just because they mattered to Greg and Molly? Greg said the children treated Sherlock as an uncle. How close of an uncle?

Maybe Molly and Greg had realized they were separately fucking Sherlock Holmes whilst raising a family and politely asked Sherlock to leave? Just for a bit, let us solidify our married relationship, we need space, you can still visit.

Or maybe, thought John in his quietest voice, the hole that Watson left was too big for even them to fill (then how was John and the wolf supposed to? _Was_ he supposed to?).

Maybe, Sherlock had withdrawn on his own because he couldn't stand it. Their obvious happiness and his own private grief.

The same deduction over and over would get dull (they are happy; you are not).

What was John and the wolf going to do about it now that he knew (guessed)?

He had to ingratiate himself to Molly and Greg. Sherlock had to re-establish and deepen his relationship and John and the wolf helping would help. Sherlock liked John and the wolf. Sherlock whispered brilliant nothings into his human ear at night, played him Vivaldi on the violin, ate all the meat he cooked. That was some form of liking (if not love) surely?

Barring on transforming and somehow convincing them all to get naked (John wasn't so sure his let's-seduce-Sherlock techniques would work on Molly and Greg. He didn't conveniently exactly resemble the loves of their lives. (another stab of pain shot through John's chest)), John and the wolf could make this visit, with its outlined goal of safely playing with Michael, a resounding success. Which meant he needed to stop being curled up in the corner and let Molly and Greg mistake him for a more ordinary breed of canine (Molly seemed unobtrusively observant, though: perhaps she would always know).

This all happened very fast in the wolf's head (maybe they did have a different time concept) and the former mates (?) on the sofa were still in their first noted positions. Maybe this was what it was like to be Sherlock: a brain so lightening fast that it went through entire revolutions whilst others remained unchanged.

John and the wolf uncurled himself and walked back over to the sofa. He put his head underneath Sherlock's hands, asking for a pet, accepting apology and granting forgiveness (friends-lovers-did that). Sherlock, without looking up, began scratching behind John's ear and John and the wolf licked his face.

"Did you two just have a domestic?" Greg joked into the silence. "That was utterly mad."

"Mrs. Hudson would have called it something like that, yes," Sherlock replied, finally lifting his head. He began scratching John and the wolf under the chin with his other hand, John and the wolf lifting obliging. "We apologize."

"No offense taken," Molly breathed, a fascinated awe coming into her voice. "Greg and I quarrel all the time: it's what married people do."

Sherlock's hands faltered. "We're not married, Molly. And you and Greg hardly ever truly quarrel."

Molly waved her hand in front of her face, unintentionally wafting her scent around. "You might as well be married. Greg and I were just quarrelling today on whether to try out this new soy milk in the children's lunches."

"It's too genetically modified to even be called milk," Greg countered, though John could tell he was smiling. "It's more like white liquid goo."

"But the nutrition is amazing! And Penny likes it even."

"Penny is their five year old daughter," explained Sherlock. "And a very picky eater."

"Oh, yes, we haven't really introduced them all to you. Michael is upstairs," Molly said. "Playing 'Numbers' on the computer, which somehow involves his Legos and dinosaurs. He's still in childcare."

"Then there's Penny, our youngest girl, named after one of Molly's dead aunts," Greg supplied.

"She was my favorite dead aunt. Er, aunt in general. She died when I was fourteen and donated her body to science. It was a bit of an inspiration," Molly blushed.

"Our next daughter is Sarah, who's seven, and our oldest are Teddy and Georgie, our nine year old twins."

"Bit of a surprise, they were," Molly said. "To have twins right off the bat."

John and the wolf gave a dog smile and Sherlock interpreted, "John admires the size of your brood, or pack as it were."

"Thank you, John," Greg said and Molly nodded in agreement.

There was a beat of silence. "Should we bring Michael out?" Sherlock said. "I think it will be fine. Or perhaps Molly would like to help us with this last cold case and then increase the interaction. What would make you feel more comfortable?"

Sherlock being unselfishly solicitous to Molly was something almost entirely new. But Molly seemed used to it, perhaps her relationship with both men and the experience of raising children raising her confidence. She chewed her lip and chose the cold case first.

John stepped back a bit to watch, choosing to lay down with his head on Molly's feet. She would reach down to scratch his head occasionally and John imagined that any pet they ever actually owned would be spoiled rotten.

In the meanwhile, John and the wolf observed. Everything he saw seemed to confirm his hypothesis. Molly and Greg were sitting very close to Sherlock and usually maintained at least one point of contact at any given moment (with Molly there as well their togetherness seemed to tighten, become even more instinctually in sync: perhaps they had been a whole unit, had sex all together). Greg and Sherlock's knees seemed to be glued together, elbows and hands brushed frequently, Molly leaned into Sherlock and Sherlock would lean into either of them. One time Molly blew into Sherlock's ear while he was concentrating and then burst into a fit of giggles when he startled and instead of snapping at her Sherlock merely smiled back and voluntarily kissed her cheek, which made her go scarlet. Greg casually laid an arm across the sofa's top, his finger's reaching his wife's far shoulder, a gesture of protection and affection both.

John and the wolf's major question by the end of it was how Sherlock could have avoided this, what a monumental effort it must have taken to build it up and another monumental effort to distance himself from it. Molly even said at one point that Sherlock should come by more often and Greg joked that maybe Sherlock was getting sick of the Lestrades because he saw them at work so much. Molly poured herself and the men more cups of tea and offered a chocolate digestive to John until Sherlock explained that the wolf form was doggish enough to reject chocolate as poison.

Molly thought this was terribly inconvenient because she loved chocolate and said John could wear some of Greg's clothes if he wanted to transform and eat some, but John (through Sherlock) politely declined, saying something about messing up variables and John being here to observe as a wolf only since, if he ever came out with Sherlock, it would have to be as a wolf (John hadn't really thought about this, but with Moriarty around it was undoubtedly true: the less clues the mastermind had to John's return to Sherlock's life the better).

Greg's shoulders stiffened at the mention of Moriarty and he reached down to brush his wife's shoulder. Molly's lips thinned to a line and she chewed them for a minute, a habit John and the wolf found strangely arousing. Only Sherlock was unperturbed by Moriarty and John and the wolf wondered if this was another thing that had driven the trio apart, a perhaps unconscious knowledge that Sherlock was hurtling towards destruction and the basic human yearning for survival creeping away from that.

Within the hour, the cold case was solved and Greg was putting away the files in his office. Molly was sipping tea and Sherlock had his head on her shoulder, his hands occupied with looking up something on his phone. It was a quiet moment, lovely in its companionship, and John was divided on whether to end the evening on a high note or continue on to Michael.

"Your son is amazingly occupied," Sherlock commented, not looking away from his phone's screen. "He's been very quiet."

"It's a very elaborate, involved game," Molly said. "That he likes to play in absolute secrecy lest one of his siblings wrest its answers out of me. Though really, I think he just likes being alone sometimes." She put down her tea and leaned her head against Sherlock's. "There's seven of us in one house and sometimes the introverts need space."

"I imagine you need space from Greg and the children occasionally then."

Molly shrugged. "I have my work. Dead bodies all day." She chuckled. "They don't speak or needle me too much."

Sherlock's eyes flicked to John for a moment before he said, "If you ever need...some extra space, you are always welcome at 221b."

Molly sat up. "Really?" Looking at John, "Is that alright with you?"

John nodded his assent and Sherlock reached out a hand, a thank you. John put his head under it and wagged his tail.

Molly squealed. "Oh! I haven't been in ages! Have you moved anything about?"

"John's been on a cleaning rampage and moved some things. He disinfected the kitchen." Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste. "But you'd enjoy one of his meals. His latest is a five course seafood feast."

"I'll have to hire a sitter for the night. Greg gets home late, as you know, and probably won't miss me for an evening. Though if you're inviting me, he can come too, I suppose?"

Sherlock nodded, done with the conversation and zeroed back in on his phone.

Molly patted him on the knee. "Well then, I think the wolf should meet Michael. The others will be home soon from primary school and if you still want just him there's not so much time."

Sherlock and John and the wolf stilled. It would be okay: he could do this.

"I'll be right back and fetch Greg on the way."

Before either of them could protest, Molly extricated herself from the sofa, leaving Sherlock to flop down on the cushions. "Is this okay?" Sherlock asked, putting away his phone and focusing on John, examining every move. "He's a child. He won't behave by adult rules."

A part of John and the wolf was tired of this anticipation and this part of him nodded. He was feeling very domesticated and calm at the moment and now he had extra motivation of remaining so-this whole enterprise had already got Sherlock to invite someone over to the flat and John could now test his cooking on somebody other than Sherlock. The said detective twisted back into a sitting position on the sofa, waiting for family's return.

The wolf heard some shuffling upstairs, a sound of bright, baby talk "we're going to meet a doggie now, Mike!" Molly must have picked him up because only two pairs of footsteps cracked across the wood floors: Molly and Greg's. The next moment Molly, holding a small brunette child in overalls that must be Michael, entered with Greg right behind.

Michael's train of thought was easy to follow. He first saw Sherlock and shouted a jubilant, "Uncle Sherlock!" He began wriggling out of his mother's arms, but then stilled when he saw John. "Doggie!" he squealed and wriggled even harder, dropping down to the floor and pouncing on John and the wolf within a second.

IiIiIiIiIiI

The experiment was indeed a resounding success.

Michael had cooed all over John, tugging his fur and wanting to ride on his back (and the wolf surprisingly let him, wanted him too). John and the wolf thought he smelled very interesting: an almost genderless human scent, and a hint of spit and sandwich crumbs and baths. He giggled when John and the wolf snuffled him all over, especially on his stomach, exploding into giggles that reminded John of Molly. When Michael climbed on (aided by his mother), he tugged on John's ears and John swatted him with his tail, which Michael turned into a game of "Catch the tail" and resulted in racing around the house, Michael sometimes on his back, sometimes chasing after him. Sherlock, of course, became a tree to also climb, Michael using him to chase after John. Michael and Sherlock seemed to already have an established "deduction game," Sherlock spilling out mild deductions about the room's objects and Michael's latest activities on request. Molly and Greg mostly sat back being entirely amused, Michael sometimes turning to them with questions or pleas if they could keep the dog.

Molly said, "He's Sherlock's, love. You don't want to take away Uncle Sherlock's doggie, do you?"

Michael, who Sherlock was currently holding by the ankles so to let him hang down and be at the perfect height for John and the wolf to lick his face, answered between slobbers (child boogers tasted like squishy salt), "Uncle Sherlock could live here with his dog. They could have my bed."

"I'm a great deal taller than you and I doubt you would like me for a flatmate," Sherlock answered dryly.

"What's a flatmate?"

"A person you share a flat with," said Greg.

"Are Mummy and Daddy flatmates?"

"We live in a house, dear," Molly said. "And Mummy and Daddy are married."

"Married housemates!" Michael screeched, which hurt John's ears a bit.

"Indoor voices please, Michael," Sherlock said. "You've hurt John's ears. See how he winced and stopped licking you."

Eventually though, Molly reminded Greg that he had another four children that required pick up from primary school. Michael whined and pulled at John's fur, but Molly prised him off, securing him in her arms. John gave him a lick goodbye and the whole party went to the front door. Sherlock kissed Molly again on the cheek, ruffled up a close-to-tantrum-tears Michael's hair, telling him to be a good boy and he'll bring John back (Michael hiccupped and gave a watery smile). Greg and Molly shared a brief kiss on the lips before Greg followed John and Sherlock out the door.

"I'd say that went well," the inspector said, checking the sky for rain. "You should come by and meet the rest of the clan."

The world was darkening: they had spent practically the whole day at the Lestrade's. John and the wolf was joyous with his success and Sherlock seemed to share the feeling, all his movements an elated flounce. "You'll take the cases to Yard in the morning then."

"Yeah, they'll be pleased to see them. Thanks for that." Greg slapped Sherlock on the back. "Alright, see you two around. Go eat something. It's dinnertime."

Greg began to walk towards the end of the street, but then stopped, half-turning towards them. He looked like he wanted to say something more, or perhaps even kiss Sherlock goodbye from the way his face leaned forward a bit, but Greg just shook his head with a smile and shrug, waving again.

Sherlock smirked after him, a face John and the wolf had never personally seen. It was working: already Sherlock had invited someone over, already his shoulders lifted as if a heavy burden had been partially removed. His whole frail form was vaguely vibrating with the excitement, his eyes alight as they rarely were, these days. He was smiling to himself all the way home, in another black taxi (word traveled fast that Sherlock Holmes now had a dog). They were dropped off around the corner from 221b, just in case this new dog development had attracted attention (it had: two desperate crime tabloid reporters were trying to look nonchalantly inconspicuous on their doorstep). They easily slipped through the back allies to their side door, quietly unlocking it and letting themselves in.

Sherlock flicked the lock behind them, but didn't move on, instead leaning against the closed door. His bright eyes and smirking smile were focused on John and the wolf: happy. Sherlock Holmes was predatorily happy.

John and the wolf liked it.

"John-"

The wolf transformed in an instant and the next instant he was fastened to Sherlock, sucking on the detective's lips, making them let in his hot tongue. Sherlock groaned and clutched at John's hair, again his gloves sticking more the strands, tugging more. Sherlock was happy, John and the wolf had done well, he now had data and could plan and plan and Sherlock would become happier, better, whole.

But now Sherlock's hands were framing John's face, pushing it away. "I-I," he took a shaky breath. "While this is lovely, I want to talk. Let me hear the results of this experiment. From this you."

John and the wolf had to take a moment to remember how to form words in a human mouth. "You want to hear my deductions?"

"Yes," Sherlock rasped.

"Alright," the wolf said. He removed his face from Sherlock's hands, letting them rest on his shoulders, but didn't step away. Do something your beloved likes. What they want.

John was standing between Sherlock's legs, giving him easy access to the detective's clothing. "This experiment didn't really study family dynamics." As he spoke, John unwrapped Sherlock's scarf and threw it on the floor. He opened Sherlock's coat and jacket to begin fiddling with the buttons of Sherlock's shirt, opening them one by one. "It was really about meeting the people and seeing how they interacted with you. If I could behave." John caught Sherlock's left wrist and teethed off his glove, spitting it on the floor. "I did observe couple dynamics between Greg and Molly and discovered that I liked Michael." He used his mouth to take off Sherlock's other glove. "Are all children similar to him?"

Sherlock hummed, pleased that John was talking, "Children are as individual as adults. But some general trends-" He stuttered, pupils widening a bit, as John's fingers began tracing meaningless circles on his chest, the shock of his warmth and their coldness. "do apply. Michael is more independent than some of Greg and Molly's others. She could never leave Penny alone for that long."

"Ah," John replied, leaning forward to suck on Sherlock's right earlobe. Sherlock's left hand suddenly gripped his hair, sliding down to his neck to stroke the hairs. Sherlock's body trembled and his next breaths came in little huffs. But then Sherlock's head ducked to the right to escape John's mouth and John growled, but just decided to continue south, sliding away clothing as he kissed Sherlock's shoulder and breast and sternum and belly. With his right hand, John unzipped Sherlock's trousers and tugged down his pants, finally nuzzling his face into Sherlock's dark pubic hair.

"John, _deductions_." The detective's hand had followed John down and Sherlock was shaking.

"Greg and Molly kiss whenever one enters the room the other is already in. They do things the other wants even if they don't want to. They get each other their favorite foods. They kiss each other goodbye. They have children they co-produced and raise. They take pride in each other and their children's accomplishments and quirks. They know where the other is at any given moment. They constantly touch..." John mouthed at Sherlock's cock which twitched in response. "But I think..." John began rapidly kissing up again, replacing Sherlock's pants, zipping up his trousers. He placed a palm on Sherlock's right shoulder. On it lay a wide, circular scar of human teeth-marks that had badly healed, possibly become infected before scarring over.

The sight of it made John and the wolf seem to go soft, shoulders slump. Pause. His elation, his happiness with meeting Michael blended together with his memories of the scar's creation, back in the Dartmoor hotel room, how Sherlock had tasted then-the copper of his blood-his struggle to get away. It had been long ago. Ten years was long ago.

Never again, John thought. He wouldn't do that again. Not anymore.

Sherlock glanced down to John's palm. "They're yours, you know. Those teeth. Nobody else has ever bit me."

John buttoned up Sherlock's shirt and replaced his coat and jacket. He fetched Sherlock's gloves and scarf, handing them to the detective before coming back in for a brief, soft kiss. "I know," he said quietly.

In a louder voice, John continued, "You being there changed Molly and Greg's dynamic. They were focused on you, as their guest and friend, and your needs."

"I warned you it would."

"Therefore, we have to go back."

Sherlock smiled. "Oh?"

"One of their children's birthdays must be coming up. Surely we will be invited. Molly and Greg will be distracted then, focusing on a lot of people and each other. Their guards will be down and more natural. You know, how when you're at a party and, even though you know you're in a room full of people, you imagine that you and the group you're speaking with are alone, that no one else can hear you. There's a chance Greg and Molly will do that. Act as they are alone with each other at party."

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "How do you know this?"

"Watson's stories."

"Oh," Sherlock said, crumpling a little, the magic, happy high of visiting the Lestrade's fading a bit. "Oh."

John and the wolf whined and kissed him. _Come back, Sherlock. Come back to me._

Sherlock made the motions of response and John decided to employ one of his new comforting techniques. He squeezed Sherlock's shoulder-the left one-and then backed away, sliding his hand down Sherlock's arm and taking hold of Sherlock's left hand, lacing their fingers together. "Come one, let's eat something. We have leftovers or we can get your favorite take away."

John led the distracted detective up the stairs to their flat, and by the time they'd reached the kitchen, Sherlock seemed to have resurfaced, saying quietly, "I'd like spicy potato dumplings."


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello all! Here we have one last fluffy section, which is shortly followed by problems. Enjoy and please review!**

* * *

The next week Sherlock was busy with cases. Or rather, a case. It was a large one, involving a stolen famous painting: _The Falls of the Reichenbach_. John and the wolf didn't really understand art or what it's purpose was beyond what Watson could tell him: humans found it elevating, soothing, uplifting, even the sad ones. Art said things. Art was quite useless.

What he did know and was quite useful to him was that Sherlock was ecstatic. He said Moriarty hadn't given him one so grandiose and high profile as this in a long while. The painting had almost magically vanished from its vault (there was rampant newspaper speculation that a rival country had speeded up research on transporter beams). Sherlock realized it was all too perfect: an inside job, boosted by Moriarty's more untraceable resources (like the Lost Vermeer again almost, but backwards). The ending was a chase that had taken him all the way to an abandoned warehouse in Leeds, but in the end the mystery was rather disappointingly simple and Sherlock had a tantrum that consisted of him slouched all the way down in his chair, legs straight out, and his face scowling into space.

John and the wolf got to practice affection on him then, since he had finished dashing about. He strained his memory of Watson's stories until he found Sherlock's favorite tea and ordered Tesco to deliver it and the chocolate digestives Greg had. He ordered take away dim sum, all the James Bond films, a documentary on Jack the Ripper. He realized they actually hadn't fucked on every surface of the flat and expanded their territory to the shower-bathtub combo (why hadn't he thought of that one before? It was so _hot _with the water and he liked seeing and touching Sherlock with wet curls slicked to his face, his neck, his scalp. He liked rubbing bubbly pink product in Sherlock's hair and scrubbing his back and shoulders and chest with a stiff bristled brush and he liked having that done in return).

"The way you're acting, I might even think you missed me," Sherlock said the next day, smiling at him, pleased as a cat with cream.

"What makes you think that?" John asked. They were in the tub again, Sherlock squatting and bare legs sticking out to make him resemble an overlarge frog. A lady on the telly had told John about bubble-bath for a whole thirty minutes and John and the wolf decided to try it out as an "experiment" (amazing, the things he could have Sherlock buy if he told him it was for an experiment). They "experimented" together with the bubble-bath in any case and John liked how he could scoop them up and blow them about or place them on Sherlock's head like a crown, or hold them up to the light and see a thousand colors in such a tiny, fragile sphere.

"You're being very...attentive," Sherlock replied. The detective quirked his head to the side, green-gold eyes analyzing. "Are you worried?"

"What would I be worried about?"

"Moriarty."

John and the wolf stilled. He reached out and caught a collection of bubbles behind Sherlock's ear and traced them along this skin, down his jar, down this neck, watching them pop or melt back to liquid. Truth or lie? Which should he tell?

"Greg and Molly were worried when you mentioned his name." Deflection.

"They have always been worried."

"I know." John hadn't told Sherlock his deduction that he, Molly, and Greg had been mates. He wasn't sure if it was the time. Most wolves and humans did pair mating and John knew from Watson that mating deviants from this norm were greeted with raised eyebrows (in the army, Watson had had equal romantic feelings for two different comrades, one a woman, one a man. In the dark of one night, drunk on gin and nightmares, he had fantasized about living with both of them at once, but the fantasy had been marred by what his family and friends would think).

"Sherlock?"

The detective closed his eyes, savoring the sound of his name in John and the wolf's voice. "Yes?" came out slow and languid.

"How many times were you in danger this last case?"

Sherlock was silent for a beat. John leaned forward, putting fingers to whorl at the base of Sherlock's neck (gesture of affection and allowance of it signaling trust, trust John with such a vulnerable part of his body), eyes and face overly close to Sherlock's but not touching. John dropped his voice an octave, emanating command, "How many times?"

Sherlock answered, "Twice. The suspect went through a construction site and a shower of bricks fell close to my skull. The second was when the suspect set the warehouse on fire with the painting and myself inside it. We weren't restrained, but it was nerve-wracking nonetheless. Lestrade has already yelled at me for it."

"Your cases are dangerous, becoming more dangerous?"

Sherlock frowned, eyes still closed. "Moriarty increased the attention drawn to our Game. The painting was worth millions. I wasn't expecting the bricks, but those seem too crass to be of his design. He does like his fire, though."

John and the wolf felt nauseous. Sherlock's words made anxiety well in the pit of his stomach, nerves nibbling at his insides, leaking away the fun that was a shared bubble bath. He kissed Sherlock hard, the detective giving a "mmph!" of surprise, stumbling backwards with arms reeling a bit, making water splash and slosh out of the tub as his legs flail to find new purchase. John's hand was quick enough to hold his head before it could hit the rim or shower tile. The wolf worried Sherlock's lower lip until Sherlock granted access to his mouth, letting John taste him, run his tongue along his teeth.

Settling to be pressed against the bath rim and shower wall and crowded by a be-bubbled werewolf, Sherlock sighed in John's mouth, running his hands up and down John's back before nestling the back of John's neck, stroking the wet hairs there. He opened his legs and wrapped them around John, scooting him closer and warmer.

John and the wolf wanted to sear the kiss into him, make him remember, burn the reminder into his DNA, that the wolf was here, please._ I do wait for you. I'm here to take care of you. You must know that. Don't you? I wouldn't have come if you didn't need me. _John and the wolf forgot to breathe and his head started to spin and he released Sherlock's mouth. Both of them were breathing harder, the friction of being close and the arousal of the kiss making their blood go elsewhere.

"You definitely-" Sherlock started.

"Can-I-come-on-cases-with-you?" John and the wolf interrupted, blurring the words together in his haste. There: it was out even though it wasn't his place. It was Watson's, but it was also important. Sherlock needed protection, like Mycroft said. Moriarty was here. Moriarty was coming. John and the wolf squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see, see the reaction and emotions on Sherlock's face. He pulled his reasons for going on cases out quickly, "I would go as a wolf of course, but then Moriarty would know I'm here, a warning to him to not touch what's _mine_. I could protect you, you yourself said I would be good at chasing and smelling, I promise not to kill anyone or bite anyone who I don't intend to make dead and I could still cook dinner."

Sherlock was silent for a beat. John's heart thumped in his ears. And then Sherlock laughed.

John and the wolf opened his eyes in shock.

It was full body laugh, shaking the detective down to his toes. His gravely voice chortled in waves of mirth and then he trying to kiss John's stunned face and laugh and speak at the same time, which didn't work out very well and mostly resulted in bubbles going everywhere, including John's head, which made Sherlock laugh even more. "Of course, you can come, you-silly-infuriating-fantastic-overly worried _werewolf_." Apparently this required another peal of laughter and at that point John and the wolf really had no idea what was going on. "I've wanted you to come since the beginning. But now you ask, while-there's bubbles on your head. You were so nervous-as if I could deny you anything anymore," Sherlock wiped his eyes. "Dear God, werewolves enjoying bubble baths, what will we think of next? Pffffftttt-Dimmock will have a case for me tomorrow. You should join."

John and the wolf wondered if Sherlock really had cracked, but when he finished laughing a smile was on his face and he was wiping more happy tears from his eyes and John and the wolf thought that if this was cracked then it was alright.

IiIiIiIiIiI

The case didn't go as smoothly as it could of.

Dimmock's homicide centered on the murder of titled aristocrat's supposedly faithful wife. The aristocrat was a fat miser with sweaty, balding ginger hair and proud, quivering moustache, living on the revenue from an antique shop instead of touching his inherited fortunes, and was completely obsessed with random trivia. His main coping mechanism for dealing with the death of his wife was to spew out random facts.

This was very, very, _very_ irritating since Sherlock's brain would be in the middle of processing something only to be derailed by the pointless factoid that US President William Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub on his Inauguration Day or that giraffes only sleep 4.6 hours per 24 hour period.

John and the wolf could kill him. He discreetly growled at him three times, but this only made the problem worse since the aristocrat (Lord Peters) would only break out in even more nervous jitters and ask for what seemed like the hundredth time, "Shouldn't this police dog have a handler? Is he really helping with the case?"

"He's with me," Sherlock said, grinding his teeth in frustration. "Now if you could please leave the crime scene-"

"Oh! But I want to help. Yes, yes, no one knew Letty like I did. You must have questions."

"Not at the moment," Dimmock sighed, tired of the antics. "Why don't you come with me and we'll answer some questions over a cuppa, hmm?"

Dimmock came up next to the lord and began mock guiding him by the elbow out of the room, continuing forward despite Peters's attempt to turn around. Dimmock muttered some consoling thing or another at him and finally Sherlock and John and the wolf were alone with the dead body. The wolf was still chagrined, rage pent up and urging to make the world a better place by a lack of Lord Peters, but he let it leak out at the edges, softening his shoulders, making himself sit in a corner and watch Sherlock.

Sherlock let out a sigh, closed his eyes, and shook his head once before returning to the scene before them. "Right."

The scene was a bedroom, a tiny thing with a grimy bathroom attached. The pretty corpse was lying curled on her side in the middle of the cheap blanket and pillows. She once was a middle-aged woman, but was now stabbed in the heart neatly once, her long black hair fanning out like a river behind her, trailing to her shocked, silent face. Blood pooled out her other side, soaking the bedsheets a rich red and staining the coffee-with-cream-colored carpet. She was wearing a bra and the top button of her jeans was undone. "Jilted in love, obviously, " Sherlock said. "Her wedding ring is on, but all suggests she was about to engage in tryst."

John and the wolf agreed with a dog nod, mentally adding that the room faintly stank of sex, the photographers and analysts obliviously walking through whiffs of arousal. Sherlock continued, "It hasn't been too long since the murder. But it was planned, perhaps from the beginning. The wound is very professional: just in and out, no mess, no fuss. Except for the robbery, one might think it was a suicide."

"What robbery was this? And what _is_ a dog doing here, Sherlock?" Dimmock said, re-entering the room, apparently dropping Peters off for an unfortunate someone else to babysit.

Sherlock snapped his head to Dimmock and glared. "I said, he's with me."

Dimmock, after all these years of working with Sherlock, didn't even flinch, letting the glare roll off. "Yeah, but is he assisting or mucking it up? He growled at Peters."

_And I could rip your throat_, the wolf thought. _But I'm not, am I?_

(Besides annoying live humans, the crime scene wasn't so bad. Molly had been right that corpses bothered nobody, and their blood and decomposition wasn't as appetizing as John and the wolf thought it would be. He only stepped where Sherlock stepped and the detective had brushed him thoroughly after their bubble bath last night: less likely that John would leave hair about.)

"John is a highly trained undercover police dog and essential to my methods. Now do you want to know about the violated hidden safe or not?" Sherlock snapped. John imagined that if Sherlock was a wolf his hackles would be raised: challenging. In his own human way, perhaps Sherlock was a more dominant alpha too.

Dimmock raised his hands in surrender, muttering something like "yeah, yeah, your scene, I understand. And I get home sooner to the girlfriend."

But that wasn't the bad part of the case. That was the hiccup and introductions. Police people, John and the wolf decided, seemed to have mellowed and more or less accepted Sherlock (in comparison to Watson's stories), the "less" people on the acceptance range still nursing bruised egos and secret grudges. They would pick a quarrel and Sherlock would inevitably win and inadvertently save a civilian's life or something else equally estimable (sometimes, on bad days, the Game mattered more) and they would calm down.

This general trend happened in microcosm in everyday interactions: to Martha handing him gloves and saying "here you go, big shot" with a playful, almost challenging glint in her eye, or Andrew on forensics stuttering a "you're back again: I never said thank you for that last one. That fungus was rare, wasn't it? But I'm heard from Rafe the other day: he's alright." John and the wolf didn't mind these people and Sherlock was able to get them through the crime scene analysis without any more interaction with Peters.

No: John and the wolf were overzealous and out of line during the chase. It felt too good to run.

As it turned out, Letty (Leticia Peters) had fallen in lesser love with her husband and taken on a lover named Matthew to ease the ache. Matthew, however, wanted to club, gamble, gobble drugs, box in underground tournaments, learn to shoot hunting rifles, and, of course, have an affair with a rich woman to pay for it all. He'd figured out Letty was rich, and, while she had given him semi-expensive gifts that he immediately pawned, he wanted more. Letty had let slip that the money was hidden in the house due to her husband's mistrust of banks.

Somehow Matthew had a friend who had a friend who had a cousin who knew somebody who had access to the extremely rare 1751 First Edition of the French _Encyclopédie _by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert and weaseled them into giving Peters time to gape over it. With Peters distracted, Matthew would have more time to fuck his wife and search his house for the treasure. Matthew eventually discovered the two safes hidden in the walls, one empty and alerting the police, one full of bank notes and jewels. Somewhere along the plan to (kinkily) seduce which safe was which out of her, he had stabbed her, opened the wrong safe, put the bloodied knife inside, locked it, opened the correct safe, and made off with the jewels and bank notes inside.

And then, Sherlock found him. And then, he ran. And they ran after.

It was just hitting late afternoon and stupid people were _everywhere_ (shopping district: Matthew, "disguised" in dark glasses and a long fur coat, had been hiding out in his favorite stores, eager for a spree) and he and Sherlock were dodging among the crowd, pushing them aside, John bowling them over and fake-snapping at their ankles, and barking, move it, move it, _move now or I will crush you_. Matthew was weaving through them like water. But John had his scent, like pine-soap, cigars, and mothballs (disgusting), but kept losing it among all the others. But he was going to catch him, if he could just see, if he just got through all these people. Sherlock was a few meters behind him, his height giving him vision but slowing him down, and shouted, "John! Left!"

John threw himself left, knocking into somebody's legs on the turn, barely seeing the opening of a side shopping arcade before careening down it, skating uncontrollably on the sudden switch to smooth tile and toppling over a cardboard display for Pirate toys. He roared in frustration, frightening shoppers, wordlessly asking Sherlock for more directions. "Right!" the detective shouted, sliding ahead of John.

People were getting more out of their way now, in the confined, more spatially-aware area of an arcade as opposed to a sidewalk street, but all the echoing sounds of shock hurt John and the wolf's ears. He focused on his legs, pumping them forward, thinking of fox hunts on the moor, letting his human strength bleed in to better grip the floor until he was passing Sherlock and saw a flick of fur coat disappear through the swinging door of a men's restroom.

John barked in triumph, because surely Matthew would be cornered here, and he slammed into the door, seeing a bathroom stall click and frantic combat boots dash away, the door's resolute shut and shopper chatter cutting off Sherlock's cry of "Jo-!"

Instantly John was scuttling under the bathroom stall to get Michael and was just in time to see the same boots kicking their owner out a man-height level window. John jumped against the wall, trying to grab something to drag him back, but his jaws just snapped on empty air. If John and the wolf continued, Sherlock would catch up, wouldn't he?

John transformed and looked out the window. The arcade was on the ground floor and the window gave a view of a dingy, brick alleyway, which probably led to a maze of other dingy, brick, and hopefully abandoned alleyways, and before John could think another thing he was out the window and back in his true form and on Matthew's scent. He howled in joy: only a few people were here and they were wrapped in cloaks and jackets and against the walls, issuing blue-colored smoke. Matthew's scent was clear.

He went left, right, straight, across a square into a dusty, abandoned building and then John had him, nowhere more to run, and the wolf leaped.

He came crashing down on Matthew's back, biting into the soft flesh of his neck, relishing the red copper tang of blood, how it sprayed on his muzzle and fur. Michael was falling and screamed, but before he could even hit the ground, John and the wolf snapped his head back, shattering Matthew's spine, contorting it in a sharp jerk to be unsustainable for any life.

_Yes, _thought the wolf. _I got him._

_Fuck,_ John thought, _I wasn't supposed to kill him. Sherlock's going to be pissed._

They fell to the ground.

Matthew's corpse gurgled blood, the eyes empty and glassy. At least he mustn't have felt much pain. John thought about Letty. Not that he didn't deserve to feel pain, hedonistic bastard. Letty might have been like Molly. _You can't just use people for your own ends. You end up matching corpses._

A heaving Sherlock coming on the scene saved John from pondering the hypocrisy of this thought.

He wheezed out a "John-" before the scene fully hit him. The wolf could trace the cacophony of emotions on his body: realization in his sudden stillness, shock in the paling of his face, resolution in the tightness of his jaw. "Right," he said. "We need to make sure you're not implicated in this: make it look like self-defense. We have ten minutes maximum before the police arrive. Transform."

John did as he was told. He was sorry. He had promised not to kill. He kept on his knees, submissive, awaiting orders.

Sherlock fished in Matthew's fur coat pocket and produced a gun. "Thought so." He looked to John and the wolf saw him immediately suppress surprise at the fact that Matthew's bloodstains were still present, dappling the corresponding places on his human body (it just did that; evidence of a kill, of being who he is). But Sherlock quickly recovered: "I want you to hold this gun in Matthew's hand and fire it. Wear this glove." Sherlock took out another pair of leather gloves from his own coat pocket. "I brought them in case of emergency. They should fit."

John took them from Sherlock and they fit perfectly. "How...?"

Sherlock shrugged, not offering an explanation and not meeting John's eyes (Sherlock had broken his crime-scene domination. It was an imperfect facade). "The gun, John. Hurry. You must remember what a trigger is." (Oh, but there it was again: perfect. John liked it, the way his voice was deeper, louder, more gravely. At least in this moment).

John and the wolf did know, from Watson. He arranged Matthew's right hand, guiding his fingers into squeezing the gun into life, firing into the ceiling. Flacks of sunlight and wood fell from the ceiling, dusting his face.

"Excellent," Sherlock said, distracted and rubbing dirt into his hair and face, stomping around the area. (now both of them would need to bathe later). "Now, we will tell Dimmock that together we confronted Matthew. There was a struggle between him and I. He was going to shoot me when you interfered, killing him in protection of my person. Understood?"

John just nodded. Sherlock took off Matthew's shoes and stamped them into the dust of the warehouse. stopping next to John. "Transform: we need to eliminate your human prints."

John and the wolf suddenly felt small and awkward. He coughed and stuck the gloves back in Sherlock's pocket. "Thanks for the gloves."

"My pleasure."

John transformed and Sherlock pressed Michael's shoe prints over John's human ones, muttering, "The Met probably won't even notice the prints, but can't be too careful."

The minute after Sherlock replaced Matthew's shoes, Dimmock arrived.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Sherlock wouldn't look at him all the way home. At New Scotland Yard, he'd looked everywhere but at the wolf by his side, clearly giving his statement to the police while someone who smelled like cinnamon and flour and office cubicle had wiped John's muzzle and fur clean of blood. Sherlock had wordlessly snagged a taxi and let John hop in beside him. He then just looked out the window, resting his chin on a hand, even when John put his wolf head on the detective's lap.

The minute they got to 221b, Sherlock stalked to Watson's room and slammed the door behind him. Angry? Was Sherlock angry with the wolf?

John and the wolf had killed a man. And it wasn't for the cute reason of protecting Sherlock. It was more or less cold blooded, on instinct.

Definitely a deviation from Watson.

John transformed and put on some clothes: pants, jeans, undershirt, red button up. He then puttered around the kitchen. He made tea for two and let the other cup sit on the counter until it was stone cold. He went online and figured out how to make spicy potato dumplings. He waited for Tesco to deliver some strange spices (accepted in wolf form. Delivery boy was more surprised that a wolf could answer the door than it could hold a receipt and tip money in its mouth). He made the dumplings. They were shite. He made some more. They were less shite. Sherlock's tea was still undrunk and cold.

It was morning by then and John saw more reporters out the window then last week.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi everyone! Interest in this story seems to have shot through the roof and I want to thank you all for reading, especially WaffleNinja and dependsonthesituation! There's a special surprise for you all at the bottom :D**

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As far as the wolf could tell, Sherlock hadn't left Watson's room in 24 hours. He heard scuffling and talking from the door, but couldn't make out the words or movements. He didn't want to go into his wolf form, not at all. He needed to be human, truly human right now. He wouldn't be able to understand Sherlock otherwise. He wondered if he should figure out the telephone and call Molly or Greg.

But he didn't. For the first time, John was standing upstairs outside Watson's door. He was holding tea and a new batch of dumplings.

"Sherlock?" His voice sounded small, even in his own ears. Louder, John. "Sherlock?"

He rested his head against the door, closing eyes, breathing in, hoping to catch a whiff of scent.

"Sherlock, I need to know you're alive in there."

Rough and whisper-soft, an answer, "Is that all you care about? That my body remains functioning? That I am _maintained_ as per your _contract_."

Adrenaline spiked up John's spine, eyes flying open. Sherlock had growled, _snarled_ that last sentence. Was he...? Was Sherlock always going to be like he was at a crime scene now? Dominant? Was that was John needed him to do? Was he finally, angrily, out of mourning?

Something seemed to break inside him.

John had no idea what the correct response was to Sherlock's statement so he said, "Sherlock, I brought you tea and dumplings."

"I don't care about tea and dumplings!" Sherlock (finally) bellowed, swinging open the door and smacking John in the face, making drink and food drop, their contents and holders spill and slosh and shatter. "Jesus, fuck-you absolute luna-"

Sherlock punched John in the face.

"I'm so tired-" Sherlock was hitting him, pummeling him, pounding his fists against his ribs, beating out his anger. John braced his muscles and let him. Something inside him, inside the wolf, broke more with every blow. "Of being sad. Of discovering over and over that you aren't who I thought. Of you _playing_ human and completely missing _everything_, everything _important_. Of being _maintained_ like some, some _domesticated animal_." Tears were leaking out of Sherlock's eyes. "And, and you fucking looking like him, _pretending to be him_ the entire time! I thought today, _of_ _all days, _you would see, he would come back!"Sherlock folded in on himself, clutching his head, pulling at his curls. He croaked, "Just let me die already."

"I-" John began.

Sherlock cut him off: "No, don't say it. _Don't you dare say you can't_. Why is-" Sherlock exploded, punching John in the gut. "it so important-" Punch. "that I _live_?" Sherlock socked John in the jaw, hard, making the wolf lose his balance and fall down the stairs.

The world ran by in a blur.

His head smacked the stairs, making stars appear as he rushed downward, tumbled and bumped and slid and twisted until he was gaping like a fish at the ceiling, only able to stare blankly and process the thought _hell hath no fury_.

Then Sherlock was looming into his field of vision. Stunned, he could do nothing as Sherlock placed hands on either side of his head and leaned down and whispered into the wolf's ear, "Give him back."

"I love you."

Sherlock startled, even more shocked than when he was standing at Matthew's dead feet. His grey eyes rounded and his nostrils flared. He closed his eyes and shook his head once.

"How can you love? You're a monster."

"I love you from the stories. I love you from what I've experienced myself. I love you when you are Broken. I love you when you are Whole."

"Stop. Stop this!" Sherlock's face disappeared from John's vision, but John felt some part of him touching his (probably broken) ribs. "Don't say that in his voice, using his tongue."

John sucked in a breath, all at once registering the pain of his body, the bruises on his chest and ribs, his left eye swelling, the blood trickling from his lip, how it would take some concentration and managing to move. Something was going, releasing, unraveling. But he continued, rasped, "I could tell you in my own language, but you don't seem to understand it." John tried to frown, searching for non-Watson words, but still Sherlock-understandable. "I would always choose you as a mate over anybody else."

"A mate. Is that some kind of fuckable plaything-"

"As a husband, you dolt," John thought it was funny but it currently hurt too much to chuckle. His breath was coming in wheezes now. He thought about Molly and Greg and had a flash of inspiration. "We should talk more. Maybe not with me bleeding into the carpet, but-I need better ways to show affection." The ceiling was getting farther away and darker for some reason. His eyelids were refusing to open and insistently started to close. "I was studying Molly and Greg so I could better tell you, be a better partner-husband-mate-caretaker." He had to transform soon; he was dying. "You're important to me. And him."

Then it was dark and soundless inside himself: there was nothing. He needed to transform: John was shutting down. He thought about fur and warmth and laying his head on Sherlock's lap and getting scratched behind the ears and how Sherlock's leather gloves snagged and how the cinnamon lady had smelled and Matthew tasted (shudder), getting his fur brushed out, observing the Lestrades, and curling against Sherlock on floor, and not biting Mycroft, and snuggling together on the sofa, and drowning out London noises and the moor.

He thought about how, really, even in the beginning, he only wanted peace. Now he wanted peace with Sherlock.

IiIiIiIiIiI

In a very odd repetition and reversal of history, John awoke as a clothed human with Sherlock shouting over him in the flat.

"Wake up, you wolf bastard. I know you can hear me!"

John, sore and exhausted, cracked an eye open. He lifted a heavy arm to rub his face. "What happened?"

Sherlock zoomed into his vision, small flashlight in hand, lifting John's eyelids to shine it in. "Despite being unconscious, you managed to transform into a wolf and then back into a human. You've not had a concussion."

"Yeah, thanks for that," John said, swatting the flashlight away. Gingerly, he sat up, inadvertently getting pottery mug chinks in his palm. He swore. "You fucking punched me down the stairs." He made general swatting motions in Sherlock direction until the detective backed off. Shaking his head back and forth, John ran his already injured hands through his hair to comb out more chinks. He stood to go the kitchen.

He stuck his head under the sink to retrieve their First Aid kit. He pulled out tweezers and began picking his hands clean, dumping the shards in the sink. Keep Sherlock talking. See what he was thinking now.

"Do you have mug chinks in you?" John said. "Let me see your palms."

Sherlock obediently let John examine his palms. John squinted at them and had to go turn on more lights in order to see the slivers. "God, I'm getting old. How long was I out?"

"About a half hour."

John whistled (ability acquired after saw Lisa from the _5th Avenue_ television show do it). "Still getting old. But I've also never been that injured as a human before."

"Today is the most we've talked in one sitting without kissing since I met you."

John stilled. It was true. It was also true that Sherlock had said "since I met you," not making reference to Watson. Keep up the banter.

"Well, before I passed out I said we should talk more." He looked up from picked slices of a ruined mug from Sherlock's right palm. "This is me talking."

Sherlock cocked his head and squinted at him. "You're speaking very similarly to him."

"It's from him I know how to speak: some of its got to bleed through." John went back to picking splinters. When he finished, he said, "Go wash your hands with hot water and soap."

While Sherlock washed his hands, John finished picking out his own splinters, having to dig a bit. He didn't mind: he'd gotten the annoying small ones out before stopping for Sherlock. He rolled up his sleeves and Sherlock stepped back to let him wash. They dried their hands on the same white dishtowel, John leaving a little blood.

John hadn't really gotten at what Sherlock was thinking now. There had to something, some hint to get out what was bugging him-

It was then John realized.

He didn't need to be here.

(the anger had cauterized his heart).

John swallowed. The lack of wolf instinct made him dizzy.

But now he wanted-he'd told Sherlock he loved him-the moor wasn't as appealing as 221b. Perhaps there was something more he could do, somehow Sherlock was only temporarily healed. He could relapse and John needed to be around. John swallowed again and his voiced quavered out: "What happens now? To me? To us?"

Sherlock leaned against the counter across from John, hands resting on the tiles. He looked away, head against the microwave. John could see the decision play out in his head, the new steely glint in his eye, the setting of his jaw. He shook a little, but he was firm, determined.

"John Watson will always be very important to me. He greatly affected my life, emotions, and work. But you are not him, rather a shadow in his body. I need to accept John Watson is dead, that I will never speak or hear or listen to him again. You are here, a person-wolf hybrid that I am just beginning to know. It would help if you spoke to me more, became more involved in my life. Not-" Here Sherlock finally looked, almost glared past him. "so I can hold on to the vestiges of John Watson that are in you, as I have done in the past. I confess that I had my hopes that Watson was within you, waiting to break out perhaps. But no. There was no trigger I could pull to make him emerge. The Peters case was my final attempt.

"You are like him, in some ways, a brother-soul almost." Sherlock's knuckles turned white against the counter, but he stopped shaking. "But you are not him. Greater involvement in my life, beyond the walls of 221b, will help me distinguish you two, see how you are different. I wish you would speak with me more, tell me your opinions, what you do all day besides cook, about the moor and your past. If it is amendable to you, we should continue going on cases together.

"You must work at controlling yourself. I do not care for many people, but please tell the appropriate wolf portions of yourself whatever you need to stop killing others. You can't attack at random. It is morally, socially, and politically understandable if someone is killed in protection of someone else viewed as morally redeemable, but in this day and age outright killing is considered a last resort, only used when _every other measure to achieve the goal _has failed. I do not want to needlessly have to explain away a dead body that somebody looking like John Watson put there. Is that all to your liking?"

These were Sherlock's rules of play. If John wanted to continue in Sherlock's more healed life, John had to do these things. John said, "That's all fine. In return, I want you to see Greg, Molly, and their children more."

Surprise was once again on Sherlock's face and he covered the expression with a hand, pinching the brow of his nose. "Your habit of answering questions with seeming non sequiturs is rather alarming. Explain please."

John was telling him everything now: might as well include this. "You were mates with them weren't you? You were..." John didn't know the wolf-equivalent. "You were partners? With them both? The way you were acting around them, the way they touched you..."

John trailed off because Sherlock had removed his hand and was staring at him wide-eyed. He recovered and asked, "How did you deduce that?"

"I just...felt it was so. They were so different from the way Watson described them in the stories."

"I-it was just Molly at first." Sherlock looked away from John. "It was an accident. I couldn't handle Watson being gone. I wanted to forget. She was there and...willing to help."

"Orgasms do make your brain shut up for a few minutes."

"It wasn't just that!" Sherlock snapped. "She-I care for her. And Greg. And Greg was obviously the better man for her to marry. So I stepped out."

John thought about how he never wanted to give up Sherlock, even when he'd thought about sex with others. They were always in addition. "That must have been a great sacrifice."

"I am capable of being unselfish. Though really, Moriarty was on the rise then and it was better for me to have as little connections as possible. I told her I didn't want to have sex anymore, that I was breaking up with her, and I arranged for Greg to pick up the pieces. I had been with him, too, but just the three times, when I was at my most desperate. When he was trying to wrestle away drugs from me." Sherlock laughed bitterly, but then continued. "Molly and Greg had been meeting for coffee regularly ever since Mrs. Hudson forced me to have that dreadful Christmas party and my actions just brought them closer. She knows the whole story now."

John didn't know what to say. Sherlock went on, "After that, I threw myself in cases, building up my reputation at the Yard, egging Moriarty into a greater Game. I visited them and did what I could to encourage their family. I am...fond of their children." (John knew he meant he loves them as his own).

Silence.

John waited. Sherlock looked at the floor, contemplating. "Do you know why I didn't go after you? Why I didn't try again at the moor?"

John shook his head.

"Mycroft collected me almost as soon as you'd left. He saw what you did and forbade me from going within twenty miles of Dartmoor. I was too weak to protest. By the time I was back in London, the emptiness just swallowed me up. I couldn't-Bitterness is a paralytic."

John tugged at one of Sherlock's hands. Sherlock let go of the counter and laced their fingers together. "John, I-"

"Shh," John said. "It's alright." He was looking at their joined hands, wanting to stay that way forever.

"Tell me about yourself," Sherlock said. "I want to know."

John smiled. It was alright. Sherlock wanted him. For now: "You need food first. I'll tell you while you eat...And answer any questions."

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**Right-o! Here's the prize. A lot of people seem interested in puzzling out John/the wolf, as well as Molly/Greg/Sherlock. The next chapter is going to have room for John answering questions and asking Sherlock questions and this is your chance to participate. What do YOU want to ask John? What do you want John to ask Sherlock? PM me or Review with your questions: they can be silly and mundane like what's John's favorite recipe, or more complicated like what did Sherlock do when the Lestrade Twins were born.**

**As long as the questions aren't too crude, I'll fit them in the story. The deadline for questions is Thursday, January 24th at 9pm PST.**

**If you'd rather not have a Q&A (that's fine if you don't!) and/or I don't get any questions, the story will move on as usual. In the meanwhile, happy Friday everyone!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello! Bit late, I know, but I'm under the weather and I had to wait to type this chapter up. Thank you to the Guest and dependsonthesituation for the lovely questions! I made a whole chapter out of them...and Moriarty is creeping nearer...**

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It took longer than the meal of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich to tell Sherlock everything, to describe what it was like to be born amongst shouts and pain and hunger. There was the curse, really a feeling, a deep whisper in his ear, a voice from the unconscious shadows that told him a story: someone once, long ago, had wanted animal power and had been betrayed by it, by the very reasons they wanted the ability in the first place. Sherlock was unhappy with these vague details, but interested in knowing how John knew them.

"May I have some of your hair?"

"What? Why?"

"You are describing something that is a cultural upbringing, rather than a biological fact. This 'story' as you call it, would normally be taught to a child by their parents and the child raised according to its values. I've also been wondering for a while how your DNA sequence differs from the normal human's."

"Yes, alright," John said, standing to get the scissors. His hair had been cut since he'd come to London, but it was growing out again, covering his ears in thick dirty blonde strands. He scrounged out an envelope from a kitchen drawer and blew dust off it: people hardly used post anymore, except for solicitations. Finding the scissors in the knife block, he cut a random piece from the side of his head and stuck it in the envelope. "Do you want wolf hair too? They might not be the same."

"You have a more scientific mind," Sherlock replied. From where he was sitting at the table, Sherlock came to stand next to John, who handed him the scissors, took off his clothes, and transformed. Sherlock took a hair clipping from John's ribs, stuck it into another envelope, labeled them both, and disappeared to his room for a moment.

When he returned, John was human and dressed again, trying to look nonchalant. John was unsure of his new Sherlock, of what the invigorated detective would do. Sherlock had said he wanted to know John, but saying was different from doing, with humans. People on telly promised to marry each other all the time, but in the next episode backed out. John suddenly wondered if Molly had ever wanted to marry Sherlock, if she said out loud she would, if she had cried when Sherlock had given her to Greg. Worse, what if Sherlock had said it all _back_.

John felt nauseous. Sherlock tilted his head, questioning, "What are you thinking?"

"Do you want the truth?" John wasn't sure he wanted Sherlock to have it. Sherlock might get ideas. Or John could know he was right, which might make him vomit.

Sherlock stepped closer, his arms beside him beginning to reach out, and he seemed to grow bigger in John's eyes, the light of the kitchen dimming and Sherlock's pale face and eyes suppressing fire. "Tell me the truth, John."

"I was wondering whether you ever promised to marry Molly, or if she promised to marry you. You say you want to know me, but I'm not sure if you'll like it and you could go back to them, to their family. I...The thought makes my stomach hurt."

"I thought you liked Molly and Greg."

"I do."

"Don't I know the rest of the story anyway? How terrible could it be?" Sherlock was calming, the kitchen's light returning. It was just Sherlock in front of him again.

"You know the events: not what it was like for me to experience them."

Sherlock sighed and gave a hollow laugh. "I _am_ the world's only consulting detective, John. I know a great deal more than you think. But let us sit." He waved in the general direction of the sofa.

After that, there were no more interruptions. Sherlock would silently make him tea when his voice grew hoarse, would text negative replies to case offers from the Yard, would open the blinds to let in light, would close them once the light was gone. He made them both ham and lentil soup. And all the while John talked and talked and talked and watched Sherlock's brain whirl and process and file and think.

And, finally, the words stopped.

John folded against the cushions of the sofa, spent. How did people hack talking to each other all the time? Perhaps it was because he had saved all his words up, hadn't told anyone, and let them rise like a tide in him until now. Now he'd opened the floodgates and there wasn't a drop left. He closed his eyes.

Sherlock had been sitting in his chair, watching John speak, the coffee table of empty soup bowls and teacups between them. John heard the chair springs squeak as Sherlock moved. The man stepped around the coffee table. John startled when he felt a hand on his brow, running fingers through his bangs, but kept his eyes closed. The hand moved to his ear, stroking repetitively above it.

"Tell me something," Sherlock said, his voice the gravelly low that John loved.

"I've told you everything. There's nothing more."

"What is your name?"

John's brow wrinkled in confusion and his eyes opened to see Sherlock looking at him intently, own iris's like blue quicksilver. "You can call me John."

"But that's not your _name_."

"I don't have one. I liked it when Molly called me 'Wolf' because that's...correct species. Like in films, when they call the hobbit, 'hobbit.' It's what I am. More so than 'John.'"

"Should I call you Wolf then?"

John mulled it over. "If you like. I don't call you 'human' even though that's what you are. It..." John licked his lips. "It feels strange off the tongue."

"Do you want a name? A name for you?"

John shook his head. "I haven't found one I liked."

"There's always Remus or Lupin. I believe his middle name was John, even."

"I'm not a bloody wizard. And how the hell did you not delete _Harry Potter_?"

"Molly made me."

"Moll-mmpf"

Sherlock kissed him, long and languid. He straddled John's lap and ran his hands through John's fine hair while gently exploring the werewolf's mouth. John wanted to whine about Sherlock's taste, how glorious it was, how it was mixed with a hint of lentil and ham soup. Sherlock started to pull away and John followed him as long as possible, but Sherlock's weight on his lap was heavy and the man was so bloody _tall_ with a neck long and visible and perfect for marking.

"One more question: you say you love me, but you have never tried to transform me. Not once. I have thought about becoming a werewolf, quite a lot actually, but you never even broached the subject. Why?"

John was surprised. "It would kill you. You wouldn't be Sherlock anymore."

"A form of him more compatible to you and your desires."

"It would kill you." John repeated and felt panic rise in his stomach. "I don't want to. You're already-" He cut himself off. He was going to say "broken," but he didn't think this Sherlock would appreciate the description. He rephrased: "You know what I was like when I was first born. You would probably want to bite everyone and run around the moor. You would have to give up your cases and it's a gamble on whether you would want to do those ever again. We're both males: it would be a nasty fight for dominance and I don't want to hurt you. I _can't_ hurt you."

"So it's part of your contract," Sherlock sneered, bitterness filling his voice.

"And I don't want-I would lose you. You wouldn't be the same." John wrapped his arms around Sherlock's body, hugging him close, pleading with his voice. _You wouldn't need me, not even a little bit._

John was suddenly full of words again. "But yes, I can't attack you. In a fight, you would win and that would mean you kill me or I leave. Then you would be alone. Moriarty would come after you. He would chase you down like you did me, not resting until we were both dead, or worse."

"Wolf packs can have multiple males."

John's hand's tightened, clutched into Sherlock's shirt. "You would want to be dominant and at your most all-hating. What are my chances of surviving that?"

"I could make a deal similar to Watson's: 'Don't harm John.'"

"Your very being is being crushed and reshaped, Sherlock. Do you have the focus to remember to make that deal and not something else?"

"Watson did."

"I'm not going to kill you. Please don't ask me to do that." John hid his face in Sherlock's chest. "Please. I love you as you are."

Sherlock was silent for a moment. "Please," John whispered into Sherlock's shirt. He felt like crying. "Please, Sherlock."

"You are under no obligation to fulfill my wishes."

John's head snapped up. _No, Sherlock, don't_. "I don't want you to go out to find another of my kind to bite you either."

Sherlock smirked. "You seem to have the upmost faith in my abilities, John."

The smirk made John's heart melt. "You don't want this. You don't want to be like me."

"Don't I? It was tempting during your absent decade and even now. How do you know what I want?"

"You want Watson. Even becoming a werewolf won't dull that ache."

Sherlock sucked in a startled breath and leaned down to kiss him again. John's left hand trembled, shaking into Sherlock's curls.

_God, I want to keep this man_.

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

Life continued. John went on cases, and (sometimes barely) restrained himself. Papers noticed that Sherlock had his own police dog and made a fuss, their flash bulbs and questions blinding John, making him seek out the black splotch of Sherlock's coat amid all the light. Though all the cases could not possibly be from Moriarty, John wondered if the mastermind had developed a rich people fetish: a necklace with diamonds the size of goose eggs went missing, a blackmailer's world went sour when he suddenly became a target, and some state documents went electronically awry.

John liked best the cases with the Lestrade's. Molly was delightful at the morgue, always greeting him and Sherlock. Sherlock would smile and chat with her about her life and children, their hands casually touching as he passed over her scalpels or she, his slides. Sometimes Sherlock would bring her "lunch" which consisted of crisps and soda from a machine and Molly would smile broader, but John still didn't understand this particular inside joke. Greg was more serious on the job then in his home, more reserved with touching. He was more wary, worn, serious and decisive. Sherlock could still be cutting and energetic. John relished seeing him like this for himself, not just as words on a page of memory. Sherlock at his finest, doing what he did best.

"Interesting," Sherlock said one day at Molly's office. It was a neat space little corner with a medium-sized desk, hanging three shelved bookcase, and one guest chair.

Molly was finishing off reports and scanning them into her computer by holding them up against the screen. "The wolf's results?" she piped.

"Yes. Look: John." Sherlock was squeezed in the guest chair and he leaned sideways to show John the columns of A, G, C, and T. John squinted and tried to make out more words. Some sections of letters were labeled with what they coded for, such as eye color, hair, heart condition, etc. Sherlock had four lists of genome in his lap: his own, John's, the wolf's, and a common wolf's.

"John as a human has similar DNA to me, though he has added, unknown sequences."

"It's numerically longer?" Molly said, her forehead crinkling in thought.

"By a good three pages. He might have an additional chromosome."

"In both forms?"

"His wolf DNA has an additional ten pages-he has to fit an entire human brain in a wolf's head."

"How do you think it's transferred? The additional chromosome or chromosome, I mean."

"It could be like some sort of viral venom in his wolf salvia. Perhaps a lentivirus similar to HIV."

John cocked his head and filed through Watson's medical files to define lentvirus. He skimmed the dim memory of a crowded lecture hall and case studies and badly written notes to sum up that it was basically a virus that attaches itself to a host cell's DNA, adding itself on. In the case of HIV, the addition causes the cell to produce more HIV viruses.

"John, I would need some of your blood and salvia for further testing."

Sherlock wanted this now? John was to transform in front of Molly?

"Sherlock, not in my workplace. I don't have any clothes for him."

"You can leave if you're uncomfortable."

John wanted to roll his eyes. _Fine_.

He transformed. "Molly's office is a more private space than a lab and I trust the needles are sterilized here more than at home."

John remained crouched on the ground, naked body apart from his head blocked from Molly's view by the desk. Sherlock patted him. "Good man."

Before Molly could protest again, Sherlock was up and out to get supplies. Molly turned bright red and coughed, but her eyes were fixed on John's face. Her body stilled and the blush turned to a bloodless pale. "You do look like him," she whispered.

"So I've been told." John shifted uncomfortably. The carpet was scratchy against human skin. "I..." He wanted to say something. "Thank you for taking care of Sherlock."

Molly looked taken aback. John hoped she got the message, that he was thanking her for the ten year he was absent, that he knew that had happened. "It must not have been easy," he added. "Sherlock is not easy."

Molly looked into her lap. In a small, sad voice she answered, "I know. I still love him."

And that moment Sherlock reappeared.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Sherlock and John recovered a kidnapped banker. The reporters were most interested in this case, as the banker was heading a merger of two major UK financial icons. His week-long disappearance was the talk of the gossip and news columns and it seemed everybody and their aunt wanted to speak with Sherlock, and newspapers, online or otherwise, wanted to run stories on the detective's past cases, which, through legal interviewing or illegal document-stealing or general Scotland Yard stalking, they obtained.

John didn't like the attention, and Sherlock paid it no mind, hardly giving any indication that Kitty Rilely had worn perfume that day, that her body language suggested 'take me now.' She was one of the more persistent reporters and John was torn between growling and gagging whenever he smelt her: an unnatural combination of pineapple and papaya.

Though they hadn't had sex since Sherlock's outburst, John was the one Sherlock kissed at night; who in bed could reach out his hand feel Sherlock's heartbeat under his palm, beating and alive.


	9. Chapter 9

**So...I would like to apologize for this chapter. Apparently when characters argue I just get confused because they're yelling at each other about three different things all at once and the three things get all mixed up and rotated through. I apologize. I would also like to say this begins the final arc of the story. I'm interested in continuing/filling out the universe, but this particular story is winding up. **

* * *

The Yard, shockingly, had a lull in casework. Sherlock made no comment, but John was worried about this meant Moriarty was busy elsewhere, planning something more complex and delicate that took time. It was the first slow period John had ever experienced and, instead of enjoying the extra time alone with Sherlock, all he could do was worry.

Sherlock pointedly ignored John's wary expressions. Instead, he asked more questions, "Do you have access to all the same memories when you're a wolf as a when you're a human?"

"Yes, of course."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "In some fictional stories, the wolf does not."

"Well, they got it wrong, didn't they? Or there are other types of werewolf."

Sherlock whined. "There is so little practical study of werewolves: I'm forced to fiction where every writer makes up what they like."

"We are a private lot." John was skimming through a paper, seeing if there were any crimes. There weren't, but there was another article about case Sherlock had solved that was going to announce verdict today: this one about a manslaughter in a theatre. This case was particularly infamous because Sherlock had tried to discreetly escape the stage in a deerstalker hat, "tried" being the operative word. The deerstalker photo now was Sherlock's most famous. Seeing it again reminded John that, despite his own progress in humanity, he was still a wolf and humans were ridiculous.

"Have you never encountered any of your kind?"

"Not a one."

"What about the wolf instinct to form packs? Alice was in a pack."

"And then they turned on her. I don't need a pack."

"Is that because you have me?"

John looked up. They were having breakfast on the third day of the lull, Sherlock with a mug of coffee and empty plate of toast crumbs. John hadn't touched his toast with jam and sausages yet. "Maybe," he answered. "I'm not sure if it's a general werewolf thing or if it's you."

"Would you happier with a larger pack? We could get a dog."

"You're already iconic enough in the papers without a second dog following you about." John himself was frequently pictured in the paper. He thought he understood the allure: a looming, brilliant man in a dashing coat with a powerful, ferocious-looking canine at his side, chasing criminals in the moonlight of London streets. It was all very romantic. And, "I find that other dogs are dull. I can communicate with them, but they don't have anything interesting to say. And I frighten them."

"Interesting. Can you communicate with other animals?"

"No more than other animals communicate with another species. Lots of body language. Like I said, I frighten them and they don't trust me. Foxes like me more than others, but they're often just there to try to share my rabbit, which I would rather eat all myself."

"We could experiment with that. Go to the park at night and see-"

John's chest spasmed in panicked realization. He dropped the paper. "No."

"Why?"

"I know what you're trying to do."

Sherlock smirked, a devilish glint in his eyes. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers against his chin. "And what am I doing, wolf?"

John ignored the thrill up his spine at the sound Sherlock's tongue molding his name. He had only started doing so occasionally and John loved it. But not now, not like this. "You're trying to find the other pack. Alice's. Using me. You know they could be around Regent's Park, as that's where Alice was roaming. If I went there as a wolf and spread my scent around, they'll come running. They'll want to meet me, find me, and either fight me or have me join them." John looked Sherlock in the eyes. "No."

"Why are you so opposed-"

"You want one of them to lose control and bite you, you fucker."

"I can't pull the wool over your eyes, apparently." Sherlock's smile broadened. "You could just do the honors yourself."

"I'll deck you."

"I'd like to see you-"

Before Sherlock could finish, John flipped the table. The detective stumbled out of his chair as coffee, toast, sausage, tableware, plates, mugs, books, and sheaves of scientific notes crashed and fluttered to the ground, some of the hot liquid splashing onto Sherlock's chest, a large brown stain burning onto his chest. Before Sherlock hit the floor, John had caught him and was pinning him to the nearest wall, hands clamping wrists into the old wallpaper that was beginning to crack and need replacing. "Stop it," John said. "I'm not going to turn you. Ever. We've discussed this before."

"So you can hurt me," Sherlock said, looking down at John in wonder, pupils strangely dilated.

"Is this what this is about? Are you _testing_ Watson's contract?"

"You, like him, see but do not observe."

At best as he could with their close proximity, John gave Sherlock a once over. With horror, he realized that a coffee cup had hit Sherlock's face, a red ring already forming into a bruise under his left eye. A knife had scratched his right wrist, blood staining John's fist. "In addition, you're gripping my wrists enough to form bruises."

John's face went pale. "You always knew I could hurt you. I've left enough marks." John stared at Sherlock's right shoulder where he knew that under Sherlock's plaid dressing gown and grey flannel pj top was a circular scar of John's teeth.

"I wanted to see if that was still true."

"It is, you sod."

Sherlock leaned his face down. "Kiss me."

John obliged. What else could he do?

IiIiIiIiIiI

The rest of the day was spent either kissing, watching telly, cooking, or playing Cluedo (dangerous). John grumbled about having to order more mugs online since they had gotten into a habit of breaking so many. Sherlock just smiled and kissed him on the temple.

The next day Sherlock found his own case: Peter Ricoletti.

Ricoletti was Interpol's #1 Most Wanted man since 1982. Sherlock headed the investigation nominally under Lestrade. The team caught the surprised criminal in his pants at his downtown Norwich hideout, where he was living under the assumed name of Patrick Rocco. The whole investigation took a week.

Just a week. When the Met had been looking for him for over three decades.

Sherlock and John were overjoyed. John transformed on their back doorstep and they started kissing before they even stumbled the door-handle open, kissed through the hall but stairs were too difficult so Sherlock cornered John against their front door, got down on his knees, and swallowed John down whole.

John shouted so loudly that he was sure any Kitty Rileys two blocks away heard it.

IiIiIiIiIiI

That night they finished fucking on every surface of Sherlock's room, the stairs leading to Watson's room, and the landing in front of Watson's room (John still hadn't been in). The bookcases in Sherlock's room had been holding them back, John wary of having books tumble on his head, but that night they didn't particularly care.

John thought it was bloody glorious.

He woke up in Sherlock's bed, the detective on his stomach beside him, an arm draped over John's chest and leg tangled in his. They were both naked and Sherlock was snoring slightly. John still felt tired, but he also had to pee.

He untangled himself from Sherlock, went to the loo, and barely paused in snuggling back under the covers against Sherlock.

The detective had curled more into himself in his sleep, no doubt sensing the loss of body warmth and trying to compensate. There was a bandage on his wrist and his left cheek was still puffy and a bit blue from the coffee mug last week. Last night, John had bit his hipbones, admiring the symmetry, and then again on the inner thigh. He hadn't broke the surface of the skin, and the marks were more like rosy prints. He had used the most force on Sherlock's long neck, where a hickey the size of a two-pound coin would now have to be covered by his scarf. John was pleased: Sherlock was his.

John felt like kissing the man awake, but he knew Sherlock needed rest. Age lines hadn't disappeared, circles were still under his eyes, and he was thinner than John would have liked. The week-long case had made him drop at least two pounds, making his cheekbones stand out more. It really was a full-time job to keep meat on the man, whose body continually shed fat like autumn leaves. John drifted back to sleep idly wondering if the moor air would do Sherlock good, help him regain muscle and retain the food John gave him...

John woke a few hours to Sherlock kissing him. John chuckled against his lips, pulling away to mutter, "I thought I would wake you this way, but I wanted to let you sleep."

"You're always up before me. I hardly ever do wake you or even see you sleep."

John hummed and they went back to kissing, gentle and soft. Perfect for morning. Perfect for humans.

Eventually, Sherlock's stomach grumbled and John insisted they get breakfast. They put on dressing gowns, and Sherlock put the kettle on while John went downstairs to get the paper. The newspaper delivery man stuck the thing right through the slot. Sherlock had asked him too, so supposedly so the detective could get his news without having to face the press. In reality, it was so Sherlock could have John exert the energy necessary to fetch the newspaper.

John bent down to retrieve the rolled up print. On the way up the stairs, he opened it.

The front cover story was titled "Master Criminal Wants to 'Get Sherlock.'"

IiIiIiIiIiIiI

John forbade Sherlock from leaving the flat.

Sherlock read the article, paled, and complied.

Sherlock ate breakfast, laid his full length on the sofa, steepled his fingers against his chin, and stared at the ceiling.

John, for the first time in his life, used a telephone. Sherlock's mobile was blaring with messages from calls and texts they hadn't heard from upstairs ("Come and play. Tower Hill. Jim Moriarty x.") and it took John 30 minutes to puzzle out the voicemail and harass the password out of the inert Sherlock. Greg had left multiple messages on the mobile, the Inspector's emotions ranging from angry to worried to annoyed to angry again to threatening to send Molly over. John called him back.

"Sherlock?" Greg just sounded tired now. Had he wrapped up all the crime scenes already?

"This is John."

"Really? You figured out the phone then."

"Yes."

"Does Mycroft know? He can arrange to get you a mobile. It would be best if you got one now." John imagined Greg in his window-lined office, standing in agitation, fingers tapping against his thigh. "But that's not why I called."

"Can you please send all the relevant case notes here? I don't want Sherlock leaving the flat."

"I don't want him to leave either."

"Will you send Molly 'round? She's inconspicuous. There's a large pack of press outside our door. Does she know the back entrance?"

"Yeah, yeah she does." Greg sighed. "Moriarty's on the move, John. We have him in custody. Do you know what that means?"

"He wants to end the Game."

Greg let out a breath. "Yes."

"I'll protect him." John's hand shook the phone. "I'll-"

John accidently pushed the end call button. "Fuck."

The phone call was finished thought and John turned to talk at Sherlock. "Molly's coming 'round with the case."

"I got all I need to know from the paper."

"Well, she's bringing them anyway."

John was jittery. He wanted to bite, run, chase, fight. He paced the flat. He thought for one wild moment that he could probably find Alice's old pack and they would give him a fight to pass the time. He needed a plan: Moriarty had a plan. A plan to swallow them, devour them in blackness, crush them to miserable death. He had made a showy first move, one that was certainly going to bring Sherlock even more attention, even international news.

Already his British fans would be texting, tweeting, emailing, digitizing the information into thousands upon millions of threads and strings of computer code, reeling out into the ethereal internet space of human news and thought and consciousness. Tongues and thumbs would be tapping out the message of Sherlock Holmes, the sale of deerstalkers would skyrocket, animal shelters would empty of dogs that resembled wolves, the Yard would have trouble working at crime scenes for the crowds wanting to catch a glimpse of the new legend.

It was going to be bloody fucking awful.

They should leave.

Go the moor. Hide there until this blows over. No one would look there and John would take care of him. No one knew John: they all thought he was dead, there was less CCTV in the country, he could go into the village for food for Sherlock, they could disappear.

But Moriarty had a plan for them and he would not tolerate their absence. He would find them. Even there.

Fine, they could leave the whole country, go to the newly sorted Palestinian Israel, or the developing South America or the dwindling United States. Heck, Canada would be perfect with its vast cold wilds. No one would bat an eyelid in Hong Kong or Madrid or Cairo or South Africa or Australia or Tokyo or Beijing. They had the whole globe to choose from, just anywhere _not_ here.

Time had passed while John thought. He heard a knocking at the back door and rushed to put on jeans before answering it. "Molly," he said as he opened the door. "We have to get him away from Britain."

Molly looked startled on the doorstep, arms full of manila case files. Her hair was piled to one side in an artful bun and a beige trench-coat covered a simple blue dress: just come from the Yard and before that work, where she'd had a meeting. Her eyes ran up and down John, taking in his distracted appearance. "We have to talk to Sherlock. He may not want to go," she said.

John ushered her inside and locked the door behind her. "We have to. He doesn't get a say in this."

"He always gets a say. He'll outlive God getting in the last word," Molly said sadly, heading towards their flat. "We have to convince him."

Molly nudged open their flat's door. "Sherlock?"

"Molly."

Sherlock was still on the sofa, but he sat up with Molly there, eyes deducing her day from her appearance. "I see Penny is ill."

"Stomach flu and she's giving it to everyone else. That's what I came to talk to you about actually."

John was confused. "What? No-"

Molly dumped the case notes on one side of the coffee table and then sat on the tabletop in front of Sherlock, steadily meeting his eyes. "I need you to stay for a few days and watch her. Greg and I are too busy with work."

"You may have noticed that I just received a new case. A quite large one. I am occupied as well."

"Penny needs you."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Molly, but I'm not going to leave Baker Street."

"What?!" John said. "We have to! Moriarty will kill us here! He's broken into this flat before for Christ's sake!"

Sherlock stood and moved to the kitchen, his back to facing both of them. Molly's eyes burned following him with angry determination and a shiny film of tears. "You don't get to do this to us. Not again."

Sherlock stilled. "I don't know what you mean."

Molly sprang up, facing him, hands fisted. "You know perfectly well what, Sherlock Holmes."

John looked between them, utterly lost.

"You broke almost every promise you ever made me," Molly said, letting her words drop like stones down a well. "And this is suicide by neglect."

"I am eating and sleeping regularly."

"You're waiting for Moriarty to kill you!" Molly said. "I know it, Greg knows it, the wolf knows it and he wasn't even here last time!"

Sherlock whirled around, his eyes a blue fire. "It's a case that needs to be solved, Molly. The only way to get him is to play the Game!"

"If you really wanted him dead, your brother would just have him shot! He could 'mysteriously' die in prison! No, Sherlock Holmes, you _want_ to play him so you can both put an end to your misery." Molly huffed. "And I'm begging you not to do that. We need you, the children need you. _John_ needs you. Most of all." She gestured at the bewildered John, palm up in supplication. "You have a life here, Sherlock. Despite how much you ignore it or refuse to see it."

"No," Sherlock ground out between his teeth. "He's not John."

"So, he's the wolf! He loves you!" Molly turned to him, desperate. "You love him, don't you?"

John replied quietly, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Yes."

"You see," Molly said. "Come stay with us until this whole trial blows over and then you can go back to your hermit life. You can help us with the children. They ask after you every week. The wolf hasn't even met the rest of them yet."

John interjected, "We need to get out of the country, not go down the street-"

"I'm not leaving Baker Street!" Sherlock bellowed. "Both of you, get out of my flat!"

"_Excuse me?"_ John shouted, pride hurt. "Who the fuck do you think cleans this flat and cooks in this flat and makes it bloody livable?"

Sherlock drew himself up. His words came out like knives from the dark, quick and sharp. "While I appreciate your two's concern, it is unfounded. Moriarty is in prison. He's hardly going to be killing me from there. I have to stay in Britain, or at least the UK, because some politico is going to want me to attend the bastard's trial. I hardly see your need to panic about that. He's been planning this for a long time and wouldn't end it all in a fiery courthouse explosion. Too imprecise. No, he wants to be in prison, wants to have this trial, and I want to find out why. For that I need to stay here."

"It doesn't matter if he comes at you with a knife now or pushes you off a building later," John said. "All of this is for you and not some threat to the country's security. He's still dangerous and I want to rip his throat out. And for that, you _do not_ need to stay here where he can break in and drag you off the minute he's released."

Molly and Sherlock's reactions were so in tune John thought they might have planned it. Their eyes rounded and their faces paled as they turned to him. "You're not breaking Moriarty out of prison to kill him," Molly said, shocked. "That's insane."

"I broke out of a military base once. It can't be that hard to get into one."

"That attack left you weak for three months afterwards," Sherlock countered.

"Well, you can drive the getaway car."

"I thought I was not in Britain during this plan."

"Well then, Molly, you drive it. It might be awkward for Greg because he was with the police."

"I wouldn't feel comfortable-"

"John, you're not doing it."

John's face hardened. Surely, an imprisoned Moriarty, isolated from his vast network, would be an easy kill. John could squash his fear of the mastermind. "It seems a perfectly reasonable plan to me. We have a werewolf. You might as well use it. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier."

"No," Sherlock said, crowding John's space, gripping his shoulders. "Not unless I'm with you."

"I can't break into a prison, kill a master criminal, and protect you the whole time," John said, indignant.

"No, take me with you. As a wolf."

"Goddamnit, Sherlock, no!" John pushed him away and the detective stumbled back.

"What's this?" Molly said, eyes darting between them. "Sherlock wants to be a werewolf?"

John was breathing hard trying to control his anger. "It would kill him." He spoke to Molly, but looked directly at Sherlock. "He knows it as well as I. He wants to be a werewolf so he can forget about Watson."

They were all silent for a minute. Molly shook her head. Quietly, she said, "You always did court death. Even before."

All of a sudden, instinct slammed into John's stomach. He doubled over, wheezing, breath knocked out of him, feeling the wolf push against his skin, the urge to transform and destroy dimming his vision. "God," he said. "He really does."

"John? John!" Sherlock was on him again and John was dizzy, letting the detective peel open an eyelid to examine his pupils, trail the other palm over John's ribs and stomach. "What happened?"

"You," John said. His voice shook. "You really wanted to die. Just then. Molly's right."

Molly looked down at her feet, her voice uncertain and small, "What will it take to convince you, you're wanted? What do you need?"

Molly stepped close and leaned over John to kiss Sherlock.

John stumbled out from between them and watched as Sherlock froze in surprise, immobile until the fact that Molly was kissing him registered. He gathered the woman to him, skimmed her waistline and dipped fingers under her shirt to touch her soft skin and Molly let him, as she reached up to place a hand around his neck and another stroke his hair. Instantly, John's instinct calmed, the need to transform and protect vanished.

Fuck.

IiIiIiIiIiI

They ended up at the Lestrade's place.

The children were a whirl of faces lost in all the emotions of the day. They exclaimed and tugged and demanded rides and brushed his fur and ogled at him from their dinning chair seats. The elders were jealous that Michael had met him previously.

But John just felt numb.

He had done so much. He had done so much and changed himself so much for this man who didn't want to be alive, who found another's love more convincing, whose previous love John had personally killed. Because Molly had convinced him to hide in safety, and John couldn't.

He could never atone for killing John Watson. The universe wouldn't let him; he would never be allowed to be forgiven nor his punishment for this crime finished. It was the only explanation for the past twenty-four hours, when the previous had been so happy and almost perfect.

He didn't know what he should do now.

He could go rogue. He could find on the internet where Moriarty was imprisoned and kill him on his own. Problem solved. Maybe he could sneak out tonight, return to 221b for research, and then have the deed done by tomorrow evening.

For now, Sherlock was with a wolf him in the Lestrade's guest bedroom. John was curled up at the foot of the bed, facing the door, back against oak bedframe. Greg was going to have a watch car set up outside if Moriarty so much as tapped his jail bars. When John had killed Moriarty...perhaps Sherlock would live with the Lestrades afterward. He had thought before that the Lestrades would ground the detective, would remind him to live and give him something besides work to live for.

Obviously, if Sherlock could get kisses and food from Molly, he wouldn't need John. Perhaps John would go back to Baker Street alone? Or to the moor? Perhaps Mycroft would figure out John was the one who murdered the madman and come after him? Perhaps, in frustration, Sherlock would commit suicide while Mycroft distracted John?

He didn't know. He would have a train of thought and it would splinter into the image of Sherlock and Molly kissing, of the long minutes before they broke apart, of their uncertain faces afterwards and Sherlock quietly packing his science equipment. John had mechanically begun to pack their clothes, but his left hand shook and his right leg ached and he took so long that Sherlock and Molly came to help him. Molly and Sherlock were their usual selves, standing close together, magnetism between them, brushes of hands, shoulders, waists. These tiny actions were like needlepoints in John's heart.

But Sherlock was safe now, on the guest bed of Molly and Greg, huddled under covers with a werewolf at his feet, the house growing quiet as the occupants drifted to sleep.

That son of a bitch is probably dreaming of ways to capture Moriarty during the Game while engineering a situation where either I turn him or he altogether dies, John thought. Bastard.

"John?"

Or perhaps he wasn't sleeping at all: just whispering into the darkness.

"John, we should talk."

Or he wanted to talk now did he? Well, he could talk all he wanted and John was under no obligation to respond or even listen (though he might as well listen).

"Come where I can see you." John rolled his wolf eyes and padded into Sherlock's line of vision. The man was curled on his right side, facing the robin-egg's blue wall and now John. The wolf waited patiently for the man to continue.

"I realize...you may be upset about today."

John did not respond.

"Please..." Sherlock reached a hand out. "Transform for me and come to bed. It's strange to sleep without you after so long."

Did Sherlock want to have multiple mates? As he had before? Sherlock Holmes, the center of a their relationship web, steel cables binding a whole unit together, all connecting the veins and arteries of their hearts.

"I don't want to be mates with Molly or Greg," Sherlock said. "Molly's actions today just reminded me we once were."

John remained silent, waiting.

"I care about them. You've always known that."

John transformed. "And you think that bending to their will now, making them feel like they did everything possible to protect you from death, will make it easier for them once you do, in fact, get yourself killed."

"Yes."

"You're a bloody idiot, Sherlock Holmes."

John got into bed and into Sherlock's arms, nuzzling into Sherlock's chest. "I hate you."

Sherlock buried his nose in John's hair and took a breath. He mumbled back, "No, you don't."


	10. Chapter 10

**FYI: This is NOT the last chapter. It'll be alright, in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end.**

* * *

They waited out the month to Moriarty's trial by going stir crazy in the Lestrade's home. Or at least John did.

It wasn't so bad for Sherlock. The detective transformed half the guest room into a lab, and Greg supplied him with a steady stream of cold cases and current crime scene photos to exercise his mind. Their flat was larger than 221b and Sherlock would pace up and down it when he needed physical stimulation. He enjoyed talking with Molly, arguing with Greg, and teaching and coddling the children, who were generally delighted that he was there. Sometimes, Sherlock would stare out the window for hours and it was then John could tell he was missing running through the London streets, and these moods would produce biting words if interrupted. But Sherlock generally behaved.

It was terrible for John. He volunteered to do the cooking and Molly made him ease up on the meat and include more vegetables, to John's great distaste. During the day he could occupy himself with housecleaning and the small mountain of laundry the family produced, but these were poor substitutes for running on cases with Sherlock. The children would come home and immediately want to 'play with the dog' which meant Greg walking him in the park, which was just humiliating, and John absolutely positively _denied_ that playing fetch was in the remotest way fun (But it was, extremely: John would complain loudly about the humiliation to Sherlock, who would just look ridiculously smug and smother a laugh). John was forced to pout under the table during meals and, while he could be human anytime before the children were home, he was confined to a wolf afterwards, which was hours.

He could listen and observe everyone, but he missed the ease of being able to open his mouth and talk back, to be included in the human conversation. Molly, Greg, and Sherlock would discuss poisonous fungi and he would be seized with the urge to tell the story of the ones on the moor, how he'd taken a bite once and been ill the rest of the day, had to transform back and forth until he threw up. The white-blonde twins would be arguing over whose teddy bear was whose and John would easily be able to which was which by scent, but he couldn't _tell_ the twins that and they were shite at understanding what he said while a wolf.

Before Sherlock and he went to sleep, he could say things, all the things he wanted to say to Sherlock before, but Sherlock was tired and often John's voice was the lullaby that led him to dreamland. It was frustrating.

He would see Molly and Greg kiss and ask each other about their day. He would turn to Sherlock with a wolf's snout and wish for lips.

Especially now.

Today was Moriarty's trial and Sherlock, as he had predicted, was called to be an expert witness. And John couldn't go with him, not as a wolf or a human, and the werewolf regretted all the moments he could have kissed Sherlock, but didn't.

"You'll be fine," John said. They were standing facing each other right in the Lestrade's entranceway. Sherlock was subdued, shoulders unnaturally straight, eyes not meeting John's, busily occupied by the floor: nervous.

The detective was wearing one of his best suits and John just wanted to take him out of it, peel the fine designer cloth off layer by layer, make that clean, posh mouth scream. He pushed the want away. He needed to comfort Sherlock, like Molly or Greg would, as the couple had, in their own individual ways, earlier this morning (Greg with a shoulder squeeze, a joke about posting bail if Sherlock was found in contempt of court, and a promise of chocolate biscuits and cold cases for tea. Molly with a hug and a smile and '"I'll see you later, but call me if you need anything." Overall, out of respect for Sherlock, they pretended it was not a big deal, even though John and probably Sherlock noticed their exchanged worried glances).

"Just don't act like a tosser to the court, no matter how mind-numbing dull they are. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," John continued. He was attempting humor and Sherlock gave a half-smile. "You'll be alright."

"John-"

John gave up and kissed him, pressed himself against the detective who wrapped arms around him in response, urged them together, drew them back so he could lean against the wall. John nibbled Sherlock's bottom lip and the detective's breathing hitched, like a thought had been train-wrecked.

John pulled away and whispered, eyes still shut tight, "I want you." He felt Sherlock breathe, his heartbeat pound. "I'll be waiting for you, _please, Sherlock_."

Sherlock kissed him, savaged his mouth, and John felt the tension leak out of them both. John fought the urge to mark him, leave a visible sign of his ownership that any cameras would catch and question.

Sherlock drew away. John automatically smoothed out Sherlock's rumpled collar. "Just come home safe," John said. He flicked his eyes to Sherlock's face, now a smooth mask of emotional distance. "You ready?"

"Yes."

John backed away to get out of sight and Sherlock opened the door. Their low profile meant no reporters were outside and with a click of the latch the detective disappeared.

IiIiIiIiIiI

Because of the media bonfire surrounding the case, the trial was not on television, as it was thought a broadcast would only fuel the flames. If John Watson was alive, he would have been invited to attend in the audience because of his relationship with a key witness, but John's existence was still a secret, or at least Moriarty acted like he knew nothing of his existence, and John wanted to keep it that way.

So John's news about the trial came from reporters pissing about outside the Justice Court and he fucking swore he saw the ginger ponytail of Kitty Riley underneath a deerstalker slip in. Thirty minutes after Sherlock was walked in ("And the Boffin Consulting Detective re-emerges from hiding to walk into the court to be a witness against Moriarty, the supposed criminal mastermind. He is of course not escorted by his signature police dog...") John was ready to break the fucking television, throw the fucking furniture out the window, tear his fucking hair out, claw out his fucking stupid eyes that weren't seeing his beloved's tribulations.

If they were still in 221b, he thought Sherlock would have come home to complete destruction of the flat. As it was, John contented himself with throwing popcorn. Lots and lots of popcorn. Molly had been complaining that they'd had too much popcorn anyway.

Eventually, the news channels switched to different stories, cycling back to the Moriarty trial every now and again. John turned up the volume and vacuumed up all the popcorn and cooked a Monte Cristo for lunch and then made three more out of nerves. He wildly thought he should take up knitting, just for something to do with his hands, and even went as far as to find Molly's basket of yarn she hid in her bedroom closet before realizing he was being fucking ridiculous and he couldn't hear the television as well from upstairs and what if it was saying something about Sherlock.

An hour later, there was news: "This just in regarding the Moriarty trial: the jury has shockingly not yet reached consensus on the mastermind's guilt. This strange news was compounded by the fact that consulting detective Sherlock Holmes is being held in contempt of court. Our source says Holmes's disrespect for the judge resulted in his imprisonment, and he will be held overnight if no one posts bail. Sounds like it will be rough night for him."

"Bastard. I knew it," John said to the empty room. "Can't ever keep his mouth shut."

What would happen next? Wait...holding cell...They would be holding Sherlock, and...and Moriarty was temporarily out of prison for the trial. Would he be in a holding cell? Would he be in the same holding cell as Sherlock? How much security were in those cells anyway? Panicking, John flipped through Watson's memories for anything, something about criminal proceedings (nothing really: only things from crime shows on telly, but those focused on the catching, not the trials afterward). Precincts had holding cells, flimsy things, something John could easily...

His blood ran cold.

Moriarty could break out. He could take Sherlock and break out and Sherlock would be gone, _forever_ gone, and John would never see him again and-

John transformed and was out the door.

IiIiIiIiIiI

He ran through London, following his sense of Sherlock, the faint pulse of potential danger. He didn't feel a direct threat, his heart was pondering its end but not very hard, no active measures being taken.

People surrounded him, some recognized him: "That's Sherlock Holmes's dog!" More shouts were "bloody dog" and "Where the hell is animal control" but John ignored them because he was sure what Moriarty was planning. His legs pumped and he almost howled with the anxiety mixed with the joy of running again, of being out of the house.

John saw the Courthouse columns and a mob of camera.

He kept close the ground and snaked through, ignoring exclamations and ruffled skirts. Harder was the doorknob, but the glass doors were opened by an unwitting suit. He saw the security and launched effortlessly over and then he ran.

Confusion erupted after him as he followed his instinct. But he was almost there, crashed through police and batons and doors and noticed a man was following him, a man in a white suit and blue tie, a scar scrawled across this forehead. He was faster than the others and John's hackles raised, warning, but there was Sherlock, surprise written on his face (how could he not know?) and it was then that John saw Moriarty for the first time, his lifeless brown eyes flicker in a smirk, they were in paired cells next to each other, and John growled and he wanted to kill, murder, break through, was calculating the risk of transforming in order to force the lock, and backed up to ram the bars as a wolf because this had more _power_ but Sherlock was shouting "John!" in horror and suddenly John was being scooped up by the man in the white suit and a needle pressed into his thigh.

The world went blurry and then it went black.

IiIiIiIiIiI

John decided he hated it when history repeated itself. It always came to grief.

Though, he supposed, this was fusion of a repeat of both Watson's and his lives. He was in a white, laboratory-like room again, in a (ordinary and large) cage and-this part was Watson's-kidnapped by Moriarty.

His body was too heavy to move and the room kept going in and out of focus. His eyelids wanted to constantly shut, like weights had been stapled to them. He tried to fight it, but Moriarty, with two heads in John's eyes, was standing before him, against a green screen.

"You know, I once called John Watson your pet, but I didn't think you'd replace him with a dog. Far too literal for my liking, Sherlock."

Moriarty was looking at John and grinning. "You're losing your game, Holmes, and somehow it's connected to getting this dog. I had all your attention before he came along." Moriarty crouched down and poked John through the bars, a double pair of devilish canine teeth. John couldn't form a coherent growl. "But I have your attention now, don't I? And I'm going to tell you a story, the story of Sir Boast-A-Lot and the Final Problem, our Problem..."

John's consciousness swam and dimmed.

IiIiIiIiIiI

His instinct woke him up.

Something was wrong, misdirected, too high. John stumbled out his cage, blundered it open, stepped out a man from the white room, falling as he realized it was a closed in set, tripping and tumbling back to wolfhood as he followed the tug. He saw guards. He saw red. A man shot at him as he walked down the hall. The man was on the floor and missing his windpipe.

This cycle repeated until he smelled London streets. His throat tasted like blood. He was running, being dragged by feeling, he was scrabbling, he was leaping, he was jumping, he was growling and barking and howling and crushing cars and pedestrians and would someone stop that insufferable screaming and give him some meat, some human flesh, something to bite and tear and devour because Moriarty had taken Sherlock to a rooftop and _he was bringing that mastermind down_.

Sherlock was laughing as he stood on a rooftop ledge and Moriarty was spinning around, shouting, _"What did I miss?"_

"Me," John answered.

John was human. He slammed the Bart's roof access door behind him and jumped, arms reaching to strangle Moriarty and mid-bound he transformed and his already bloody fangs were digging into James Moriarty's throat and blood was spurting and Sherlock was shouting and John and Moriarty fell with a thud. John scratched and dug into the human, the mere mortal whose face was frozen pale in shock. A spine snapped, a stomach un-gorged, a heart stopped, he was dead, he was dead, he was never coming back to hurt him or his mate, they would be safe, safe, safe forever.

"John!" Sherlock tugged at him and John snapped backwards and Sherlock stepped away. In an instant, John was human, breathing hard, blood still splattered on his mouth, in his hair, down his chest, a crime scene all to himself.

"_What do you want, Sherlock Holmes?"_

Sherlock looked lost.

"I have to die."

"No." John moved away from the corpse, stood to face the detective.

"There are guns trained on us. If I jump I save you." John growled and took a step towards the detective, who took a step back. "Moriarty had a call off word, but now that he's dead I have to do it. It was rather unfortunate timing on your part." Sherlock gave a shaky, wry smile, his eyes swimming as he looked at John. "Though I appreciate the gesture and your presence."

"I'm covered in other people's blood."

"Nevertheless. I never planned to live this long."

Sherlock stepped back again, feet hitting the stone railing.

"Call Greg. He'll pick off the shooter. This area is not too exposed: you could hide until they find him."

"Goodbye John." Sherlock turned around and took a step to stand on the railing and began to step off.

John's eyes rounded. In an instant he was there, behind the man he loved, hugging him close, hand splayed against his beating heart. "I love you," John said.

And then he twisted them around and pushed Sherlock, back to the rooftop, and he pushed off the rail into empty space, a misdirected bullet colliding with his left shoulder.

It ended with falling.


	11. Chapter 11

**Last chapter!**

* * *

There was a hospital.

Sounds were coming in and out: voices, sirens, commands, whispers.

Smells were overpowered by antiseptic.

Taste: just the roof of his own mouth, maybe his tongue, a little dehydrated.

Touch felt like cotton blankets and cold and human skin. And droplets of warm water.

He couldn't see. He tried to make himself see, but he couldn't.

Where was Sherlock?

Other memories came up: the moor, the park, the bite, shooting the cabbie, Barts, Stamford. No: was that him or someone else?

Was this not his beautiful, terrible, life?

IiIiIiIiIiI

John slowly began to sort through the senses. It was a slippery slope, since he would sort out that his human sense of smell and go on to hearing, but then the smell would slip or mix with the wolf's and he'd have to sort it out again only to have his taste go to shite.

But he slowly bubbled up to the world again.

One thing that kept him at it was the feeling of a hand in his own. He was sure it was Sherlock's-it had to be.

It was.

The first action John was able to form upon waking up was saying: "Can we get married yet?"

He opened his eyes to see a startled Sherlock Holmes at his hospital bed, sitting in the visitor's chair with the signature coat and scarf thrown over the back.

John decided it was the best thing he had ever seen.

Sherlock's eyes filled with tears and he grasped John's already held hand with both of his own. He brought it up to his lips as he nodded. He kissed John's knuckles. "Yes, God, John: _yes_."

"Come here."

Sherlock kicked off his shoes and John scooted over as much as he could (there was an IV in his arm: how annoying) and Sherlock snuggled half-beside, half-on top of him, shaking. He put a hand over John's heart and John could tell he was counting the beats.

IiIiIiIiIiI

What happened while John was unconscious was this:

Sherlock had followed instructions. He had hid, correctly deduced the location of the shooter, called Greg with his and the shooter's location (as if the act of John falling wasn't enough to alert the police), and waited. Greg had neutralized the shooter and called Sherlock. Meanwhile, John had lain on the sidewalk of St. Bart's for twenty minutes, staining the concrete red. At the end of twenty minutes, medical personnel had taken him into the hospital where a distressed Sherlock followed them in. Sherlock had yelled at them, said John refused medical care, deduced a nurse into an epileptic fit, and had barricaded himself and the trailing fragments of John's body into an operation room. He had then proceeded to yell, plead, cajole, and otherwise try to manipulate John to transform, and after a half hour of this, John did, all the while not waking up.

During those thirty minutes, Greg had cordoned off and proposed a decent enough account of what had happened to Moriarty. Sherlock's "dog" John was famous, after all, and the press that formed around the incident in the next twenty four hours ate this explanation up.

Also during those thirty minutes, Molly had begun, in utter disgust, an autopsy of Moriarty's corpse, and may or may not have stabbed out one of his eyes. The occurrence of Moriarty's eye being stabbed and removed with a neat fine cut never went on record.

The final relevant occurrence in that thirty minutes, which is put last since the whole procedure lasted an hour and a half, was Mycroft. The elder Holmes brother offered the nurses and doctors that had attempted to heal John generous compensation for their time, on the condition they keep their mouths shut about his recovery and existence. If they did not accept the generous compensation, as was the case of one woman who Mycroft deduced had suffered from severe neglect as a child and now yearned for any sort of (media) attention, and a man with strong morals due to having recently become a born again Christian, Mycroft stood over them and listed the exact and precise measures in which he could destroy them or, if being bodily literalness was necessary (as it was for Jessica Hopkings), make them resemble the corpse St. Bart's morgue had just received and may or may not have been stabbed in the eye.

John was still asleep as this process finished. The now pliant nurses and doctors realized they had a miraculously-healed-of-bodily-injuries potential coma patient on their hands. They dealt with it.

Sherlock was allowed to stay, contorting his long body into hospital room chairs. Molly, Greg, and Mycroft visited when they could during the intervening seven days.

The media, which had been starved for Sherlock Holmes news since the incendiary trial over a month ago, raged. Boffin a fake! Richard Brooks and Kitty Riley reveal all! Sherlock Holmes hat sales off the charts!

They circled the hospital like vultures, crying in delight over the potential dead.

Nobody knew about the werewolf. Or at least everyone who did was silent.

IiIiIiIiIiI

"You are never to let me see that again."

"See what?"

"You...on the sidewalk. There was-your skull and spine was _in pieces. I could see your brain._"

"I'm sorry."

"I understand it's part of your contract to not let me-"

"I also just don't want to. Is that so hard to believe? After everything?"

"..."

"What happens now?"

"I keep you safe."

"Do you want to retire? With your name ruined?"

"I...I do not care what the masses think."

"You care that they think you're right."

"You are my highest priority."

"Sherlock, _I'm fine_."

"Don't you want to go to the moor? We could go there."

"I like London."

Incredulous: "You like London."

"I think you still have work to do here. We could clear your name, become more involved with the Lestrade's children. You did well with them. You liked it."

"You _didn't_ like it."

"I can adjust."

"John...I don't want you to sacrifice more for me."

"I'm fine."

"No."

"Fine. Yeah, I didn't fit as well with the Lestrade's. I didn't like not being able to talk with you when I wanted or being treated as a dog."

"You liked playing fetch."

"Sod off...How about this? You and I live at 221b. We schedule a day to see them, all of them. Just...make an effort to see them more. And we can clear your name and be married. And, when you feel like you're ready, we can retire."

"You realize that you'll have to become some sort of legally recognizable person for us to marry."

"Yes."

"What name will you take?"

"Do you still have land out in Sussex? An estate?"

"Yes...?"

"Sherlock?"

"What?"

"That thing you felt. Those emotions you had when I was unconscious. Those are the same ones I'd have if you turned. And if you really want to keep me safe, keep me sane, you won't put me through that. Let yourself be human, love."

IiIiIiIiIiI

John woke up in Sherlock's 221b bed alone on his wedding day. They had gone traditional where the groom doesn't see his...groom...until the ceremony. Molly had taken John out for a day shopping for a fitted blue-black suit (shopping malls were dazzling and confusing even when not chasing a criminal through them). Three days ago he had received his first barber shop haircut, which was a quarter inch longer than Watson's usual, so little strands sheltered his ears, but did not get into his eyes. The angle of the cut and the deep color of the suit heightened the blue of his eyes and the Molly assured him that when he smiled he looked fairly wicked.

He had no idea what Sherlock was wearing and he partly hoped that the detective had evaded Greg and his brother and showed up starking so everyone would be focused on him and not John.

As he showered, John reminded himself that it was going to be a small ceremony. The re-emergence of "John Watson" after being missing for over a decade had probably come at an awkward time since he and Sherlock were still going through case files to prove that Sherlock, logistically, could not have been one place solving a crime and another committing one, or other such accounting of whereabouts. It was a project that took a lot of time, which was good, because they were not accepting cases at the time being. The Yard was swamped with press demanding an inquiry, and the Yarders and long time Holmes fans were busy shouting back that Sherlock was the best thing that had happened to the detective art since DNA testing.

So the paperwork for this identity had taken a while. The Lestrades and Mycroft were coming to the wedding that the press had no idea about.

And by the "Lestrades," he meant _all_ of the Lestrades. Over the past two months, he had been introduced as a human to the children as "Uncle Sherlock's boyfriend." John noticed that their interest in him was significantly reduced from when he was a wolf. After their first meeting, they had almost ignored him unless he was holding sweets or a present.

John would tilt his human head trying to puzzle this out: they loved and bothered and adored a human Sherlock. Sherlock just laughed and said children were unpredictable and to give them time.

First though, he had to get dressed in the suit and bring up his favorite Internet video on how to tie a tie. His short fingers were clumsy with the fabric and it took him about three tries, but it worked. He looked at himself in the mirror and decided he looked very little like himself, but hopefully Sherlock would like it. According to Watson's memories, he did resemble the societal definition of "handsome."

John patted his hips: keys? Mobile? Mycroft had given the telephone to him. Oh yes: he also had to not punch or otherwise harm Mycroft. The urge was less when they had first met, and John had accepted the mobile without any violence. Mycroft was an ally, not someone who deserved to have a knee to the groin, he reminded himself.

John walked to their back door. Though it was unlikely, there might still be press. As John caught a cab, he let the memory of Sherlock against the back door overtake him: the softness of the detective's skin, the timbre of his voice as he asked John to talk, sight of John's teeth etched in his skin. John closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cab's window. He rolled his left shoulder. There was a scar, but it didn't hurt. As if this body's cells remembered the image, but not the reality of being a Watson.

London passed by like that.

IiIiIiIiIiI

John couldn't stop smiling.

Sherlock slammed him against the courthouse bathroom wall, crowding his space, pressing their bodies together. The detective's smile disappeared as he kissed John hard, ground their hips close, lifted John against the tile to get the right angle, breathed "I missed you" in John's ear. John kissed hard back and raked his fingers through Sherlock's hair and sucked his new husband's tongue and Sherlock moaned in pleasure. "_Johnnnnnnn_."

John gave an answering whine and hooked his legs around Sherlock, trying to get closer, find a rhythm. He felt like he was on fire, burning, bursting. His breathing was ragged. "Sherlock."

That night, John finished making Sherlock orgasm on every surface of the flat.

IiIiIiIiI

The next day, a Sunday, John and Sherlock drove to Sussex. Well, Sherlock drove. John had no idea how to drive.

"It's definitely finished today?" Sherlock said. He was jittery, fingers tapping the steering wheel (John wanted to kiss the nerves out of him, but Sherlock had said this was unadvisable while operating motorized vehicles, sadly). They had just turned into the gravel drive of Holmes manor. It was a large, a brick manor with twisting smokestacks, the main front flanked by shorter perpendicular side-wings. Neat rectangular windows gleamed in the light and rosebushes clipped to near death guided the visitor to the doorway while ivy wound its way up one whole side. John wondered how big the rooms were, if they could take the Lestrade children here for a summer. It was so large that there must be plenty of space in there for eight humans and a werewolf. But later: now was important.

They left their suitcases in the car, and instead hauled out an ice chest and picnic basket. John could carry both, but Sherlock insisted on taking the basket. He was still twitching. John stepped close and kissed him. "Hey, it's alright."

Sherlock clung to his collar with his free hand. "I know."

"It's a good thing to do."

Sherlock nodded. He touched their foreheads together for a breath. "Right."

They ignored the front door and went directly to the back. The lands surrounding the house were not very expansive, stunted by fenced fields and forest. Immediately outside the back door was a garden, blooming flowers well cared for. Farther on were vegetables. Farther than that, hidden by trees really, was a cemetery.

It wasn't very crowded, with three orderly aisles of tombstones. Small paths were between them and Sherlock opened the waist-high iron gate (it creaked loudly) to walk down the leftmost aisle. John followed.

Sherlock stopped at the newest grave. Though the dirt had not been overturned, the elaborate cross was freshly carved: John Hamish Watson. His dates were underneath.

Sherlock stiffened and stared. John put down the ice chest and hugged Sherlock from behind, snuffling his nose into the detective's back. Sherlock reached up and covered John's fingers. "I'm here," John mumbled into Sherlock's coat. "I'm here, Sherlock."

Sherlock said nothing, but squeezed John's hand.

After a minute, John stepped away and plucked the picnic blanket from Sherlock's hand. He spread out the picnic blanket, and got out the cheese, salami, crackers, apples, and plates. He retrieved wine from the ice chest (also full of rum and absinthe, for later, if needed). Last, he carefully pulled the bouquet of white mums, pink gladioll, and red roses. He handed it to Sherlock.

"Go give them to him, love."

Sherlock acted like a mechanical wind-up toy. Minding the setup, he robotically placed the flowers at grave's feet. He came back and sat next to John (his eyes were awash with blue and green today, John noticed, like an ocean). John scooted closer and rested his head on Sherlock's slumped shoulder. The detective's jaw unclenched to let out a sigh.

"Tell me about him," John asked. "Let it all out. I want to hear all the past cases. I've seen some of the paperwork, but not the whole story."

Sherlock began. The whole tale took the rest of the afternoon and well into twilight, the English sun warming their backs. He became more animated as he went, gesturing with his hands, eyes drying and lighting up. John popped the wine and they got drunker and drunker as they went, John teasing Sherlock into eating the snacks. They poured wine and absinthe and rum on the flowers because Watson might want some too. Sherlock became excited, slipped back into the stories Watson had told him about his life and soon they were giggling like children. Together.

And then they were stumbling back in as the sun stumbled into night. John held their suitcases aloft, and Sherlock unlocked the door and led the way to the bedroom, and John was kissing him into the silk white mattress, and Sherlock was tugging him closer, and John was growling the clothes off (_now_) and biting, licking, scratching, and whispering spirals of 'I love you' into Sherlock's skin (he knows), and Sherlock's pupils were blown and his hands were clutching John's hands, arms, back, hair, and Sherlock was spreading his legs wider, and John was letting out whimpers (because _heat_) and trying to not hit Sherlock (too) hard against the headboard, and they both shouted at once into the quiet of the house at night, and, afterward, Sherlock curled into John's chest, and they both slept and dreamed as one (stay with me).

The wolf was at peace.

* * *

**Credits:**

**THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU ALL for being so supportive and awesome and fantastic in your enthusiasm for this story. There would be no story without WaffleNinja, who is a grand conductor of light. Dependsonthesituation's despair/joy really kept me going when times were tough. For everyone who has PM-ed during this, I really appreciate all your help, advise, criticism, and flattery. I feel like I've grown as a writer. Thank you for thinking my story was worth it.**

**I would also like to extend thanks to: (the brilliant) matroskina1, (the lovely) Raychaell Dionzeros, DaniPC, Kama Leono, otala, UntoldStories97, (the phantasmic) SniperKingSogeking0341, Sherlocked95, DarkWolf005, Kariout, wolfblade17, and of course YOU, whoever you are, reading this.**

**For those looking towards the future, I have disparate ideas for continuing this in another story, as all the conflicts are not quite resolved. There's some mostly silly scenes floating around...However, it may be awhile before I post anything more since I have school and a (massive) original writing project. We'll see. You can follow me as an author for alerts or pm me and I'll make sure to notify you. **

** In the meanwhile, may you all have lives full of nice wolf kisses, puppy cuddles, and summers in Sussex!**

**-Missing Triforce**


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